“People have a harder time living without a why to live for.”

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2015-10-06) from his book, Intentional Living: Choosing a Life That Matters (p. 84). Center Street. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

I understand that.  When I retired from church planting and pastoring I was a little lost.  I wasn’t sure what my why was anymore.  But I found that my desire to make a difference in people’s lives was still there.  Instead of preparing each week to stand before people with a message, I found I could do the same thing but everyday with my computer.  That is where this blog came into the picture. 

John says, “I’m like my dad. I want to keep living and giving until I’ve got nothing left. To this day, my dad’s still in the game, and he is ninety-four years old! Every morning he gets up excited. Why? Because he still has his why! Every day he visits old people— it never dawns on him that he is an old person. Everyone he meets is someone whom he wants to encourage to keep going, to keep focusing on their reasons to live. He makes fifty pastoral visits a week to various homes.”

John goes on, “People who know my dad say to me, ‘You’re blessed to have his genes.’ I agree. But I’m even more blessed to know my why. That will sustain me a long time. I’m going to live fully until I die. And God willing, I’ve still got a long way to go. But when I finally do pass and I am six feet in the ground, I hope they put on my epitaph, ‘Here lies a man who lived with purpose and intentionality,’ because that’s how I want to be remembered.”

We each were created by God with a purpose, a why and we never will retire from it.  That why is what energizes you, motivates you, makes you feel alive.  

So why would we want to retire from that?