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Do What You Love?
Joe Killian • Nov 01, 2019
Have you ever had a phrase keep forcing its way into your consciousness? Lately, "do what you love" has done that with me. "Do what you love and love what you do." Sounds good, right? Or how about "Do what you love and never work a day in your life." There is even a book titled, Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow. My Google search also produced, “Doing what you love is where happiness lives.”
Wonderful sentiment but is it realistic that we can follow our desires to contentment, financial success and happiness? The website that charged $233 for an online course sure seemed to think so. Here is the banner for that course. Do What You Love: The life-changing e-course. Design your life the way you want to live it! As I looked through the outline of the course something immediately struck me. The first section of it was titled, Choose Your Destination. In other words, begin with the end in mind.
I'm not suggesting that you take this course; no, my advice is quite the opposite. Instead of beginning with the end in mind begin with the beginning in mind. “Let us make them in our image, after our likeness.” The Our section of Our Journey WITH God
begins with this all-important passage from Genesis. When we embrace the deeply profound significance of this verse we begin a journey to knowing who God is, which leads to knowing who we truly are. First and foremost, we were created uniquely. Being precedes doing. In understanding who God created us to be we then discover our divine purpose.
While doing what you love might make you happy, being who you are impacts the world as God planned for you. Take this phrase with you today, “Be who you were created to be.”
The story continues...I'm still working on the pondless waterfall in our front yard. I shared this project with you two weeks ago in Playin' In the Dirt. Since then I've had to rework sections of the stream three different times because we were losing too much water. I am now an expert on evaporation rates and excessive splash, two causes of water loss. This morning I tore the whole thing apart and I'm starting over.
Have you ever watched DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda? I stumbled across it recently and thoroughly enjoyed Jack Black's performance as a bumbling, noodle selling, kung fu enthusiast, giant panda named P o. Set in ancient China, it is more than a humorous slapstick comedy. The core message of the story jumped out at me as I have been focusing recently on the concept of being. Po is shockingly identified as the Dragon Warrior and he reluctantly enters training. The goal of the training is to receive the Dragon Scroll, which is believed to hold the secret to limitless power. Now I don't want to spoil the big reveal but I will say that what Po realizes is the same as what I speak to in the concept of being and authentic identity. So, where do we find the secret to our "power?" I praise You, because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works! My very self You know. Psalm 139:14 God knows it; and we must seek Him with all of our hearts in order to find it. As it was in the movie, the answer is stunningly simple. Our authentic identity is already within us. The challenge for Po in the movie was in seeing himself accurately and not the way others saw him. Even his teacher scoffed at the idea that Po was anything more than an underachieving dreamer who overate when he was anxious. Po's problems are rooted in the fact that he believes the lie of his false identity much more than he does his authentic one. Is it possible that you do the same? Who could have imagined that beneath all of Po's girth lived the Dragon Warrior? What's hidden from view in you? Seek God for understanding as to who He created you to be. Spoiler Alert: the secret of your limitless power is already in you. God placed it there and He wants you to be who He authentically created you to be.
Maria and I have been playing in the dirt a lot recently. First we replaced our French drain and then we embarked on a creative project intended to change the entire look of our front yard. My brother Jeffrey and I installed a new front step.
