What a grand scheme God had when He sent His only begotten Son to this earth with the ultimate purpose of dying on a cross for you and me…..so that we could spend eternity with the WHOLE FAMILY of God! Now, that’s what I call a “Purpose-Driven-Life”.
The book, \u201cThe Purpose Driven Life\u201d, written by Rick Warren, was on the New York Best Selling book list for 90-weeks straight. It is one of my reference books that I pull out often to remind myself and my readers that we have purpose and a destiny to live out. Rick described his book as an “anti-self-help book.” The first sentence of the book reads, “It’s not about you,” and the remainder of the chapter goes on to explain how the quest for personal fulfillment, satisfaction, and meaning can only be found in understanding and doing what God placed us on Earth to do. The book’s 40 chapters (meant as a devotional for 40 days) are packed full of eye-opening, jaw-dropping ways of stepping into our own purpose and destiny. I wish I could give you a copy, but if you don\u2019t have one, give yourself a Christmas gift that won\u2019t disappoint!
As miraculous and wondrous was Christ\u2019s birth, God created us with purpose and destiny in mind. And, on this day, I must tell you about a specific one. I’m celebrating the birth of my baby girl. Without a doubt, I know that God was “on purpose” in creating her, and He used her dad\u2019s and my love for each other to collaborate with Him to raise her, pour His Word into her, and help direct her in fulfilling her destiny.
I am putting the purpose-driven spot light on my daughter today. First, we were on purpose in naming her Staci Michelle. Staci means “resurrection life” and Michelle means “close to God”. While we had no idea what the future would hold, it held true in many people\u2019s lives. She is a resurrection-life philanthropist as she doles out the life-changing message of Christ who replaces their fears, rejection, defeat, depression, darkness, pain, and indifference with His love and a new life in Him.
I don’t tell you this to impress you, but to impress upon you how important it is to calculate, ponder, pray for, and obtain God’s vision for your children. He had that vision for His Son. Would He expect less of us in casting vision for our children?
If this blog were an \u201cadvice column\u201d, I would be highly recommending seeking God about the names we give our children. What we name them shouldn\u2019t be a mere conglomeration of letters that we put together as a convenient way to refer to them. God proved that when He named His son Jesus — that name that is ABOVE all other names, that describes His personality and gives interpretation of His character traits. He lived up to His name and it gives us hope, life, and blessing. Indeed, names are important!
With Staci\u2019s birth in December, I am drawn to Gabriel’s announcement to Mary in Luke 1:30 “And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and you will call His name Jesus.” I love that Isaiah 9:6 gave definition to His name before He was born, “And He will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
We were all born on purpose by God and FOR His purpose. I remember a bumper sticker: \u201cGod don\u2019t make junk!\u201d Of course, He doesn\u2019t and never should we question how He formed and made us to be exactly who we should be. And, with God \u2013 there are NO accidents. God not only created us with destiny and purpose, He planned the days of our lives in advance.
I\u2019m ever thankful for this day when I get to celebrate my purpose-driven daughter and for this day to celebrate YOU and your purpose-driven life, too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What a grand scheme God had when He sent His only begotten Son to this earth with the ultimate purpose of dying on a cross for you and me…..so that we could spend eternity with the WHOLE FAMILY of God! Now, that’s what I call a “Purpose-Driven-Life”. The book, \u201cThe Purpose Driven Life\u201d, written by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17384,14840,22274,15791],"tags":[22272,19414,156,1210,22271,1769,15814,684,40,749,22270,4283,2082,6923,19548,4306,675,3712,4284],"class_list":["post-15258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-destiny","category-purpose","category-purpose-driven-life","category-staci-wallace","tag-advice-column","tag-announcement","tag-birthday","tag-blog","tag-christs-birth-2","tag-christian","tag-conceive","tag-gabriel","tag-inspiration","tag-jesus","tag-life-on-purpose","tag-luke-130","tag-name","tag-purpose-and-destiny","tag-purpose-driven","tag-purpose-driven-life","tag-resurrection-life","tag-rick-warren","tag-staci-wallace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15258"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15262,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15258\/revisions\/15262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}