What's Your Purpose?

One of my all-time favorite movies is Babe, a 1995 comedy-drama. It's the story of a little piglet who grew up on a farm, and who emulated the other animals because he had no other pigs to emulate. In the story, Ferdinand the duck was emulating a rooster by crowing at dawn every morning. Ferdinand saw that roosters had a purpose (to wake up humans every morning), and that roosters generally were safe from slaughter and being the next holiday meal. So, he acted like a rooster, with decidedly mixed results.

Babe the pig emulated the Border Collies on the farm and became good at helping herd and protect the sheep. But Babe's "Aha" moment came when he encountered the human's vain and evil-minded house cat, who said something to Babe that made me cry. The cat said, "pigs don't have a purpose." The cat went on to tell Babe what her purpose was, and what the purposes of the other farm animals were, but she assured Babe in no uncertain terms, that his only purpose was to wind up being bacon and ham on the human's table.

Babe was crushed. Imagine being told that you don't have a purpose, that you and all your kind are totally worthless. I love this story so much, because although I am an unadulterated lover of the occasional breakfast bacon, I saw myself in Babe. Growing up in the segreated South in the 1950s and 1960s, I was not expected to be much or to do much with my life. My "kind" were black folks who had been oppressed for centuries, and who struggled most often for survival, not equality and civil rights. But education was always preached by parents and other role models as the means of escape from poverty, and that education was the gateway to a better life.

I aspired to higher education not because of desiring a better life; I was so shielded from the cruelties of the world as a girl, that I didn't know what a better life was. We certainly had plenty of food to eat, a nice little house, a TV set, and a family car. If we were poor, I didn't know it. I just knew that there had to be something more to life out there in the world, and that I was destined to find out what that something more was. I embraced my destiny and my journey and I never looked back. I will always remember where I came from, but I will never go back to the oppression and hopelessness that black folks felt less than a century ago. As a young girl, I longed for a purpose, something beyond what my current reality was. As I strained forward, God started revealing to me what my true purpose in life was.

But getting back to Babe...his story ends well with finding his purpose and in a fairy tale ending, not becoming the porkloin served on Sunday.  His purpose in life was not for all pigs...his purpose was just for him.

Your purpose, your God-given reason for being here, may not fit the mold and be for anybody else but you. God created you for a purpose! It's your purpose, not for your mother, your father, your sister or your brother. Your purpose may take you places you've never dreamed of, and have you accomplish things that only God knew you were capable of accomplishing.

What's your purpose? If you don't know, seek God earnestly and openly with humbleness and prayer and supplication, and He will reveal Himself to you. Know your purpose already? Then seek His face to reinvigorate your purpose and dreams. He said he'd never leave you or forsake you...He's just a prayer away.. and wait for the small, still voice that gives you revelation to go to a higher level.

Find your purpose and remember Luke 12:32

Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.