At some point in everyone’s life they ask themselves the question “Why am I here? What’s the purpose for my life?” Those are great questions and we should all wrestle with those to discover the answers. As I’ve worked through those very questions I keep coming back to these three things: Faith – Character – Leadership
My Life Focus: Sincere Faith, Humble Character & Servant Leadership
The first area of focus or purpose in my life is my faith. We all have faith in something. I have chosen to put my faith in Jesus Christ. He is the most important relationship that I have in my life. Because of my faith, my perspective on life, the world around me and the people around me is much different. I believe that everyone is more spiritual that physical. Our spirit is who we really are and it lives in a temporary body. I also believe that our spirit will live forever, so even after our body stops working our spirit goes on. We will live forever somewhere, either in the presence of God or separated from him. That is why I put my faith in Jesus Christ, because he paid my debt, forgave all my sins and stands in my place before God. Because I have a relationship with Christ I know where I am going to spend forever.
The second area of focus for my life is humble character. To me character is about the qualities that a person is known for. When someone says your name what are the things that come to their mind? These qualities can be both good and bad. When you think about what people will talk about at your funeral, that is a good indication of what kind of character you have. For me, I want those things to reflect these qualities: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-control. Our character is always under construction because no one is perfect. In my life I make mistakes, fail, sin, have bad thoughts and do or say things I regret. I sometimes have a bad attitude or respond to stressful situations in inappropriate ways. What I try to do though is learn from those setbacks and bad moments. Developing our character takes work, pain and struggle but it is totally worth it in the long run.
The last area of focus in my life is servant leadership. Leadership has been a hot topic for a long time, yet servant leadership is not nearly as popular. Most leaders would agree with the idea of serving the people around them, yet most people prefer to be served instead of serve others. As a leader my main focus needs to be on setting the people around me up to win. Creating space for them to learn and grow by allowing them to do what they are good at and coaching them on what they are not good at. Servant leadership is about doing what is best for the organization, family or church rather than what is best for me. Again this is easy to say and hard to do because we all have selfishness in us. Our tendency is to look out for ourselves, make sure our needs and wants are met before we think about meeting the needs and wants of other people. Changing that mindset takes work, focus and failure. The question I try to ask myself is what would the people around me say if they were asked is Chad a servant leader?
My hope is that these three things will inspire you to pursue your life purpose and focus. Never stop growing.
Lead On