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“God never intended for you to live a mediocre, average life.”

A thought by Rick Warren from his book, God's Answers to Life's Difficult Questions (Living with Purpose) (p. 63). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

That is so true.

Rick says, “You are designed for excellence, and you were uniquely created. Instead of being one in a million, you are actually one in about six billion! Yet there’s nobody else exactly like you; you are unique.”

I was watching the snow fall the other day with my 6-year-old granddaughter from Las Vegas and she said no snowflake is the same and I said that is also true of us, there is no one exactly like you, like me.  We are all different.

Rick goes on, “Everybody wants to be recognized. In fact, not only do you want to be recognized, but you need recognition, for the sake of your own emotional health and image. When my daughter Amy was very young, she would say to me, ‘Watch me, Daddy, watch me, Daddy!’  She wanted to be recognized. She wanted to stand out from the crowd.

“We as adults do the same thing, except we don’t do it as blatantly. We do it with our cars and our clothing and our homes. All the time we’re saying, ‘Watch me—everybody look at me!’ Most of us have a need in our lives to be different, to be excellent, and to stand out from everybody else.”

Later Rick says, “The first principle of living above average is that you need a great ambition. You need a dream. If you don’t have a dream, you are drifting. When you stop dreaming, you lose direction. When you stop setting goals, you stop growing. You must have something that you’re pushing toward: a goal of excellence. As long as your horizon is expanding, you will be an emotionally healthy human being. God made you for growth; he wants you to stretch and develop and dream. God has a purpose for your life, and your key to success is to discover that purpose and cooperate with it. God never intended for you to go through life with a half-hearted attitude, wondering what you’re doing and where you’re going. God wants you to have a great ambition in life. A life with no challenges and no goals can be summed up in one word: boring.”

At the beginning of 2019, that is a great place to start.  So, do you have a dream, a great ambition for your life, for this new year?  Do you?  Would you take some time with God and discover your purpose and determine to cooperate with it?  Would you?

Yes, yes!

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