Wow, McManus talks about our need to look forward -- beyond the "now." He says it's important to not live only for the moment. He says: "It will never be enough for us simply to exist, and if all we have is now, our souls will starve from lack of nourishment. Without a future there is no hope, and hope is essential for our souls to thrive."
He talks about hope. Hope needs the future. No hope leads to despair. "We all need to believe we have a future and a hope," he adds. I remember asking Chris Cornell about the importance of hope and encouragement. He answered emphatically that we all needed it.
McManus tells a couple of suicide stories -- explaining how easy it is, sometimes, to change someone's mind. That it's not a cataclysmic thing needed to avert this tragedy. Sometimes it's as simple as being needed. One woman was headed towards the window of a high-rise office building. Just then someone popped in and asked her where the Coke machine was. She walked that person to the machine. She was needed. It helped. Another woman was on suicide bridge in Pasadena and gave God one last chance. "Speak now or forever hold your peace," she said. Just then her cell phone rang. She never gets phone calls, but there was someone on the other line that was looking for her and needed her for something. It was enough.
It's such a good ending to a sad direction, but what does it tell us about purpose, destiny, and hope? What does it say about our desire to be "needed?" What does it say about our perception of having a purpose? Of making a difference?
Wow.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at October 3, 2007 02:59 AMI have heard it said that if my life is but for one soul to reach and that soul to be saved it is enough purpose and reason to exist. And if my whole existance is to praise God it is worthy to exist in praising Him for His pleasure.
Posted by: tornado at October 3, 2007 04:41 PM