Is This Really
All There Is?

Why does life feel like survival mode?

Pastor Brandon uses a picture from the old greyhound tracks in Florida. The dogs chase a mechanical rabbit around the track. One day the rabbit exploded. With nothing to chase, one dog lay down and went to sleep, one ran in confused circles until it broke its ribs, and the rest just stood there barking at the crowd.

That's a lot of people's lives. No clear tomorrow, so we either check out, run ourselves ragged, or get angry at everyone around us. "Where there is no vision, the people perish" (Proverbs 29:18). The Hebrew word is chazown: a dream, a revelation, a picture of what God wants to do. Without it, a marriage drifts, money gets spent and still gets fought over, and the weekends get filled with things that feel good for a week and leave you empty.

Jesus didn't die so you could survive. "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete" (John 15:11).

What does a clear purpose actually do for me?

How do I find my purpose?Two questions to ask every day

Pastor Brandon's gift is taking complicated things and making them simple. Here's the whole thing in two questions from Ephesians 5: "Be very careful, then, how you live... making the most of every opportunity... understand what the Lord's will is."

• What am I doing that I should not be doing? What in your life is dark and needs to change? You probably already know. The relationship you shouldn't be in, the habit that owns you, the thing you hide. "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is" (Romans 12:2). Until you step out of the dark, you can't see the road.
• What am I not doing that I should be doing? "If anyone knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them" (James 4:17). There is something you were made for that isn't happening because you haven't started. Find the need in front of you and fill it. Nobody ever got called into something who wasn't already doing something.

Hearing without doing isn't transformation. Ask both questions, then do what you heard.

What if I'm not qualified?

Peter wasn't. He was a fisherman in a boat in a storm at four in the morning when Jesus came walking on the water. Pastor Brandon's message "Live a Better Story" pulls three things out of that scene:

• Recognize God's presence. "Take courage. I am here!" Even while your life is being tossed around, Jesus is walking toward you, not away. Purpose gets revealed when you spend time with Him.
• Listen to His voice, not the boat's. Everyone in the boat said "don't do it." Your calling is cultivated in prayer, not in other people's opinions. David's gifts grew in a field with sheep; his purpose grew in that same field, alone with God.
• Get out of the boat. Faith is stepping out without the whole plan. God doesn't give you the destination; He asks you to stay on His bumper and follow one step at a time. You have no idea what God can do through you until you do.

And about the struggle you're afraid of: it's by design. Struggle brings appreciation, builds character, and burns away the counterfeits. Calling finds you. You don't have to go find it.

The path we walk people down

Everyone at Vibrant is on the same four-step journey, whether they know it yet or not.