Discover your purpose

Jan 4
31 min read

Updated: May 8

I heard it once said,"People that over celebrate their ability to feel will eventually loose their ability to feel." Contrast that with the opinion that "What you desire matters." Surprisingly, both of these can be true at the same time. And I think about this culture we live in, full of contrasting opinions at every turn, and wonder how young adults are suppose to navigate their way to discovering a life full of purpose. Purpose comes from the Latin verb proponere, where pro is “forward” and ponere is “to place.” So the original idea was “to put forward” or “to set forth” on your vision for the future. Finding purpose is a very important notion for young adults, and not always easy to find with all the variance of opinion. This classroom is for those approaching adulthood, who have a plethora of decisions in front of them to make, wondering how to navigate it all. And yes, it is kind of long, but I poured my heart into it, and I think it holds some gems.

There is a book of Abraham, that not many people know about. It has a line by the great mother Eve, who says, "It is better for us to pass through sorrow that we may know the good from the evil." And it reminded me of what Brooke Snow just mentioned on her podcast, Practicing Wholesomeness. There is a thing called polarity: polar opposites that seem to run on a spectrum, with two ends being the extreme. Here are some examples:

North and South

dark and light

scarcity and abundance

gratitude and discontent

shortcuts verses the long route

oneness verses separateness

conditional love verses unconditional love

act or be acted upon

guardrails and free range

teach verses being taught

masculine energy and feminine energy

serve and be served

boredom and entertained

pleasure verses pain

health and sickness

big picture verses narrow lens

If we're talking just about polarity of beliefs, this is really easy to identify in the political realm. You have the right and you have the left...which can cause alot of judgment and division. So we start to notice all the divisions around us, and preferences between polarities. Some prefer cold air; others prefer hot. Some prefer a Winnie the Pooh mentality: carefree and chasing honey, bouncing around from one pleasure to the next. Others prefer The Little Engine That Could mentality: Focused intent and mental strength to hit one goal, until you make it up that hill. "Mind over matter." "Where there is a will there is a way." And as Brooke Snow points out, "I invite you to just bring into your mind one of these neutral polarities, hot and cold, wet and dry, inside, outside, night and day. And just notice what it feels like in your body to presence both of these polarities. Are you able to hold both? Are you able to maybe tune in to some of the gifts that one side or the other of these polarities provides? Just noticing what it's like to be able to hold both. And maybe you do notice a little bit of preference creeping in....our own mind is literally divided into two. And so we're going to easily pick up on this in our world view." Naturally, there are preferences and tendencies for us to hang in one end of a spectrum, like the polarity of presence verses daydreams, or funny verses composed, or right brained verses left brained. But perhaps we are here to learn to hold both polar extremes as much as we can in order to experience wholesome living and find a balance. To get a visual, look at one of the greatest polarities there is, that of desire verses willpower.

Those with desire lead with their heart, and those with willpower are leading with their logical brains, a very important distinction to understand when coming up with your future goals. Another way to say this is impulse verses delayed gratification. So going back to Winnie The Pooh. "Doing nothing always leads to the very best something," he says. He is the spontaneous bear who follows his heart to the honey and bounces in and out of situations, never fully completing the tasks he started and never pausing long enough to consider that there may be a better way; a delightful frame of mind that not all of us can afford to live each 24-hour day. Winnie the Pooh lives on one extreme of the polarity between heart and mind, between desire and willpower. He demonstrates living on the heart and desire side. Contrast that with The Little Engine Who Could...the engine that sweats and toils his way up the steep mountain. "I think I can, I think I can," he mumbles in his thoughts as he toils upward with all his might. Nothing was going to stop him, and we are left to believe in our youth that willpower is all we need to push ourselves forward through life. But what happens when willpower is not enough? What happens when the engine can't make it up the mountain and we run out of steam? What happens when we have such a strong belief that we should do something, but our heart is just not into it?

You will see willpower 'go out the window' every time you ask your younger brother or sister to do a chore. It is the end of the world to take the garbage out sometimes. And yet, when you tell them you are taking them to the carnival, they will end up walking four extra miles more than it did to walk the garbage to the side of the house. Somehow, their legs have the energy they need when their hearts are involved. So we clearly see that having desire and heart can give us the energy we need. But we also see that too much heart can lead us to live Winnie the Pooh lives at the beach; jobs don't get done; honeypots are spilled all over the floor, and sometimes we get stuck in the pot. It seems that hanging on one extreme of the spectrum, keeps you stuck.

So we are left to wonder, is there a balance? And this contemplation has been thought through in generations long past our day:

Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean… between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency. -Aristotle

and we think about polarities like kindness verses honesty for example, and wonder...is there too much hanging out on one side of this polarity? Do we sometimes need to be more kind or more honest? Have you ever hung out with someone so honest that they say a very mean thing to someone? Or someone so kind that they sound fake all the time? I once heard:

For moral virtue is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is destroyed by excess and deficiency, and preserved by the mean. -Aristotle

Aristotle believes that every virtue in excess becomes a vice. Think of all the "kind" people who sound so fake that you can hardly get through the "small talk" moments. Clearly we all need a little more authentic depth and honesty in our relationships. But that is hard for some of us to swallow, because we hang so far on one side most of the time. And so perhaps the mean of those two virtues, is to never be so nice, you forget to be honest, and never be so honest, you forget to be nice. Life is not static, meaning, life is always going to be moving you toward one polarity or the other. But what Brooke Snow loves to point out in her framework for wholesomeness, is that there is a gift in each end of the polarity, and when we notice each gift from each side, and bring them both together in our focus, we can live "whole" as she calls it. So back to great mother Eve who clearly demonstrates this same idea. Do you remember the name of the tree that she ate?

It was called the tree of knowledge. Apparently, when we eat the fruit of this tree, we gain knowledge. And she gained knowledge by experiencing the other side of polarity from the 'garden state'. The garden state being a static state of no opposites. No lack, but no progression. No hunger and pain, but no happiness. Just a boring homeostasis of no emotion. So her move from Eden to the Earth as it is now, full of thorns and thistles, lack and scarcity, & winters and cold, gave her purpose; something to rise up from, something of a challenge. So perhaps what happens when you only live in the Garden State, is that you never gain happiness, purpose, identity, or "knowledge". You stay static, you don't move towards progress: something that we were built for in this life. Clearly we were built for purpose and a focused goal, and at the same time built for love and desire. Willpower and desire combined! Winnie the Pooh and The Little Engine Who Could make a great team. The grand truth is that to become like God, we have to learn how to navigate through polarity, both in body and soul, a skill that God is perfect at. Intelligence arises from understanding opposites, recognizing limits, finding balance, and grasping nuance. Knowledge comes from discerning that moral virtue is embedded inside of us and sometimes differs from cultural norms, acknowledging that certain instincts within us clearly indicate when something is wrong. We get to learn from moral polarities as strong as "good" verses "evil." And deep inside, we all have the light that guides us through it. Let's look at another famous person in history, who in his own way like Eve, crossed over from pleasure to pain, and let's see what he learned:

I paraphrase from the prominent homeschool favorite in our family, The Story of The World Series, book 1:

Prince Siddhartha lived in India. He lived around beauty, luxury, young servants, and help at every moment of his early life. His proud father, King Suddhodana, built him three palaces. He had a thousand servants, the best tutors, musicians, meals brought to him as he pleased. But in time, he got curious about the outside world. Remember, in India back then, there were castes. Priests and warriors were at the top, farmers and traders in the middle, and servants at the bottom. But wait, there was also the "untouchables," so lowly you could hardly call them a caste, not even allowed to be servants. They were exptected to waste away and die, and being born in an untouchable family was considered the most unlucky fate. So when Prince Siddhartha asked to see the city, his father ordered the streets around the palace to be cleaned, buildings to be scrubbed and repainted, and he drove all the sick and poor away. He told the chariot driver to only stay in the streets near the palace. At first, Siddhartha saw beauty as grand as the palace, and loved what he saw. But as his chariot turned a corner, he saw an old man, dragging himself along with the help of two sticks. He also saw another man sitting on the sidewalk, bent double in pain and pleading for help. He asked his chariot driver what is wrong with the man, but was told that nobody would help him because he was an "untouchable," and was expected to die. Siddhartha didn't even know what death was, because all the servants he had in the castle were young and vigorous. The driver told him that one day he would die too, and that even you, Sir Prince, will die too. Siddhartha was struck with grief and misery when he returned to the palace. He had never known that people lived in pain and suffering, or that all men would die. The luxuries all around him seemed false and wrong. He took off his fine clothes, put on the poor clothes of a beggar, and went out of the palace. For many years he lived the life of a beggar. Talk about going from one polarity to another. He spent his life trying to find out why people must grow old and sick, and finally die. The book says, "One day, Siddhartha was sitting beneath a wild fig tree, thinking about the mysteries of life. Suddenly, he exclaimed, "I understand! Everyone, no matter how poor, sick, or miserable, can find happiness by leading a good life!" From then on, Siddhartha was known as Buddha. He taught his followers that they should be honest, peaceful, and non-violent. He adopted a moral code that still frames an eastern religious perspective to this day.

He is an example of experiential learning from one extreme of a polarity to another, and finding a way to bringing the gifts of both into balance. Wealth and pleasure verses poverty and pain. Not surprisingly, most people don't get to learn from that polarity like Buddha. Look at another example who started from the opposite spectrum of Buddha, and made his way up to riches, and see what he discovered:

Milton Hershey was a man with no money who grew up very poor. He didn't like school, and his parents decided he needed to learn a trade. He struggled learning from a mentor, and discovered what he really wanted to do was make candy. It took Milton Hershey quite a few cities, failed attempts, helpless struggles, and bankrupt businesses to finally manifest his dreams of bringing candy to children all over the world. Years and years and years of hard work and starting over. He went from trying hard candies, to caramels, to finally learning the secrets of chocolate. A compassionate bank lender, and a notorious chocolate seller in England who stumbled upon his caramel, gave him the luck he needed to take his business into the financial success it still is today. However, he frequently ran out of funds before his ultimate pursuit of limitless wealth. I don't know if he ever realized his Hershey chocolate bars would still be eaten today after his first and second failures. He spent alot of money turning his chocolate making town into the tourist attraction it is today. Milton Hershey demonstrated that it is what you do after the failure that really matters. He lived a life of intention, focus, and perseverance, yet even Milton Hershey had to pass through valleys of hardship. He couldn't have children, his wife passed away after battling a prolonged illness, and he found solace in dedicating his time to constructing an orphanage, which became a dream come true to many children. Milton Hershey held riches beyond measure, yet true wealth whispered to him in the gentle kindness he poured into his town.

He too, like Buddha, went from one polarity to the next, discovering the gifts of each extreme, and finding wholeness by using the gifts of each side. His purpose became higher than himself. His orphanage, and the job market he created in his town, blessed thousands upon thousands of lives, and still is. There isn't a campfire in the Midwest that doesn't have a bag of Hershey chocolate bars, ready for their toasted s'mores.

Milton Hershey lived a beautiful life, but did not start from the same end of the spectrum as Buddha. Yet, they both demonstrate strong moral character and compassion for others as they progress in their journeys, venturing from one end of the extreme to the next and learning what they need from each. So we learn that it does not matter what end of the spectrum you start from, there is a gift to be learned from your beginnings and endings, and there is a gift to learn as you venture towards purpose, bringing the good you learn from opposites and extremes. Some of us will not ever learn from scarcity or abundance, but we will learn from health and sickness. Some of us will learn from idleness contrasted with hard work. All of us will learn from pride verses humility. Wholeness and clarity are felt when you experience two polar opposites, and you learn to see the gifts that come from hanging on both ends, bringing them into harmony with one another in some interdependent balance. Spending too much time on the painful side of life, verses lingering on the pleasurable side, is a significant experiential learning opportunity in life. It gives you the clarity to know you can't stay on one end. Even guilt can become a blessing, as the pain from it becomes a guidance system of knowing you have gone too far away from high morals. I love how Jordan Peterson puts it,

"I tell young men, find something difficult to do: you need that! Your not built for comfort and pleasure, if that comes along good...if you have a day where you are comfortable and there are some things around that give pleasure, have some sense and enjoy it, but don't be thinking that is what your life is aimed at; that's contemptable, everyone knows that, and if they orient themselves to that hedonistic direction there is nothing in it but shame, no one is proud of themselves for using pornography...they might screach and cry about their right to do it, "I can live whatever lifestyle I want" ...well first of all... NO YOU CAN'T, that doesn't work, it won't work for you because you can't sell yourself out, and it won't work for other people, and when I tell people this, the audience always goes dead silence. The adventure in your life will be found from responsibility."

As you get older, you will have more responsibility for your actions than ever before, and you will also learn that the world is not always black and white. Knowledge is gained when we see and sometimes experience the polarities of things, and realize there is a hidden cost to staying on one extreme. The responsibility is to mature your faith into seeing what is required to live with a higher moral code while discovering your purpose. That is why there is nuance in all the decisions you have to make in life. That is where the word nuance comes from. Nuance refers to subtle differences in how we can express things. When you are young the answers are very extreme yes or no's with less nuance. "Don't run into the street, don't hit your brother, share your toys, mind your manners, sit down and eat your dinner." But as you mature, you will have to learn that there is a major responsibility that comes from hanging on between the culture you grew up in and the moral laws of God.

Said so well of the polarity of the letter of the law verses the spirit of the law by Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: "Many of us mistake being good for being compliant. The path of human development, and one of the early stages is what, Lawrence Kohlberg called the "good boy, good girl stage", and that is where we are inheriting a morality by learning how to comply with the standards that are specific to whatever group we belong to. We’re trying to prove that we’re good, that we’re worthy, and we’re trying to earn a sense of belonging. So when we’re younger, it’s perfectly not just normal, it’s adaptive to do that because you’re inheriting standards and a language and values. The challenge though is that as we move into adulthood, a lot of us have learned lessons either from our family or our religious culture, or even just out of our own anxiety of displeasing, where we don’t grow into deeper honesty or deeper authenticity or deeper ability to discern what is the most right thing to do [when it comes to our desires and goals], because it can be so uncomfortable for us, especially if we learned the way that we will be valued is by being compliant, right? It’s very easy to just go along with what is wanted from you, than to do what you think is most right, which might sometimes displease people….It means tolerating invalidation, tolerating people’s displeasure. It can be easy to manage our own discomfort in seeing that by going along with what others want, sometimes at our expense." We all get to learn that moral virtue is not always in sync with cultural imperatives from our earlier life. Isn't it funny that sometimes God has commanded someone to kill a man, and other times he commands us not to kill out of anger. Even a law is not always black and white. There is polarity in how we obey, and that is why we all need to trust the Spirit that can guide us through all the trick situations.

This can look something like simple, blind faith verses mature faith. Even faith has a spectrum. Compliance is very important, especially when you are young. But willingness of your own free will to live God's laws is crucial, particularly as you become more skilled in recognizing distinctions and subtle natural consequences. A faith that is wholesome and discerns between "good and evil" understands that some things are more black and white than others, and there is beauty in holding concrete morals as well as questions at the same time.

At times, we struggle with decisions that don't have a straightforward right or wrong answer among the virtues. Gaining insights from exploring the polarities of life helps you fine-tune your growth. We all need a wise mentor, like a Dumbledore or a Gandalf, to help us discover option C when we only see options A or B. Your aspirations and dreams might shift the more you learn to balance the polarities of heart verses mind.

In the words of Allen Bergin: "Self-control is the ability to modulate, to rule feeling, passion, habit, and inclination, not with an iron hand, but rather with a sense of timing and regulation which maximizes outcomes for oneself and others. It is the ability to submerge oneself in feeling when it is useful, appropriate, or right, thus to enrich one's existence. It is thus the ability to delay gratification, but not to avoid it entirely. Like the steam regulator, it permits expression, but only in useful or safe channels."

So while we are here on Earth, getting older, making more decisions in life, we will have to learn from polarities even more than when we were kids. And sometimes those polarity extremes don't manifest their consequences or their life lessons as fast as we want them too. Other times, things really bite and we learn the lesson quick. For example, I once mistakenly gave my kids habanero peppers, believing they were simply small, orange, mild peppers. I had absolutely no idea they would be intensely hot, about 20 times spicier than jalapeño peppers. My kids were very angry at that instant life lesson.

So sometimes, like a dog, who gets shocked by a shock collar, we learn to not hang into one polar extreme very quickly. Other times, we have to learn consequences slower from hanging in one extreme of something. And those slower, manifesting consequences of good and bad polarities, are why we have a merciful, patient, loving Savior; a God, who gave Eve and Adam "space," and you and me "space", to experience Earth's opposites, and then take a turn back towards God's laws. It is my lens of faith that Jesus Christ makes our progression possible, through the law of mercy. Another very important polarity: mercy verses justice. Yes there will be times when willpower is all that stands between us and sin, but there are better ways to place guardrails for ourselves than just depending on our mental discipline. Like learning to lean on prayer and the mercy of Christ. We need to find the heart, and harness it's passions of desire, but as we include the heart, we also have to learn that we can't stay static over on the heart side either. We need our hearts and our desires to learn to get along with our logical minds and our willpower. Which is why scripture says:

The Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind. DC: 64:34

So we realize that desires can be a wonderful thing, and they come from the heart. But we also learn that freedom from reason is not freedom at all. To be fulfilled in life, we must cultivate both desire and impulse control, both feeling and logic. Purpose is found when we honor our desires AND align them with our beliefs. The heart makes a better servant than a master. Yet, if we rule our desires like a tyrant, we engage in self-denial. When we nourish our desires with self-compassion, while schooling our feelings, we start to get a glimpse of how we can fulfill our life mission. When we find our hearts and minds locked in battle, neither one truly wins.

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. -James 1:8

This applies to women too. As women tend to argue with themselves alot with what they think they should be doing and what they desire to be doing. And we realize that if two polarities are fighting to have a winning side, they have not found a wholesome middle. A win/win solution comes from honoring both sides of ourselves. The caring, nurturing side, and the gifted, determined side of ambition. So if we align our hearts, with our minds, we can find a purposeful passion that aligns with both our desire and beliefs. For instance, do you think it is helpful to learn the polarity balance taught by a grandmother of Marjorie Taylor: "never be so polite, that you forget to wield power. And never wield so much power, you forget to be polite." A beautiful truth that is learned when managing a household, running a business, delegating tasks, and finding your purpose. There is so much to learn between polarity! And we are just scratching the surface here. Which is why we need to look at some of the greatest polarities that can help us on our journey of discovering our purpose:

The polarity of taking care of others verses taking care of ourselves.
The polarity of conforming to the crowd verses standing out and being different.
The polarity of being kind verses being honest.

There is no black or white as we try and find the balance. And isn't that liberating?! I love what Jody Moore says, "What happens when we have opposing voices? We create more extraordinary results. That is the truth, my friends. We need people to have differing opinions. We need people to not just sit around and agree with each other ..." And perhaps we see that love has many polarities under its umbrella, and clearly why the Lord said to love with our hearts and minds:

Love the Lord they God with all they heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law. Matt. 22:37-40

Why does God want us to love him so much? The world calls you "needy" if you are always trying to get validation from everyone around you. That tricky polarity of attention seeking verses attention avoiding. So why does God need it? It makes sense to love others but why does he make loving Him such a priority? And then we realize it's not because God needs our love, but because the more we study about Him, the more we learn to sync up with a purpose greater than ourselves. If we don't give Him attention, we don't learn from the highest example of love in the infinite multiverse. In order to make magic happen here on Earth, we need to attach our purpose to the master of all purpose: Helping ourselves and others, not just one or the other. Notice that His law says love your neighbors "as thyself" and it doesn't say love your neighbor more than yourself or love your self more than your neighbors. God's whole purpose is much higher than himself, as should ours be. He desires to "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of men." And when we love God, we love his purpose, and want to team up with it. A purpose like His helps us school our passions, and not get bit by the hot jabanero consequences that come from living a life like Winnie the Pooh. God knows what we need to find joy, and joy is not the same as happiness. Life would be boring if we were always happy and never sad. Joy is wholesomeness. Joy is when we have married our heartfelt desires with a mindful purpose that transcends ourselves. That is why we are encouraged to learn God's will. Not because he is a tyrant, and wants you to follow his every move, but because he planted desires in your hearts, and He knows how to help you school them:

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. -C.S. Lewis

It wasn't until Christ came 2000 years ago, to show there is more to love and law than we think. Knowing that sometimes love looks like hugs, and sometimes it looks like running around chasing merchants out of the temple with a bullwhip, so as to protect the sacred. A purpose aligned with God is a purpose that He can back up and help us with. And suddenly The Little Engine Who Could is being pushed up the mountain by heart, soul, and heavenly help.

These are deep but important things for us to really think about as we dream our dreams and set our goals for the future. We all underestimate the power of our dreams. We hear the quantum science behind manifestation:

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

and

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. -Eleanor Roosevelt

So you start to be really interested in this science behind manifesting. But even manifesting needs a higher purpose that is wholesome. And then you start to wonder what the scriptures mean by:

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? - Jesus

and how the modern spiritual giants share the promises that come from living a life devoted to God and say things like:

Are you willing to let God prevail in your life? Are you willing to let God be the most important influence in your life? Will you allow His words, His commandments, and His covenants to influence what you do each day? -R. M. Nelson

So we start to wonder if God's will means that we need to sacrifice our dreams. That we are to follow his rules and sacrifice our will for his. But we sometimes think that is too big of a cost, like the child who doesn't want to do the chore. Is there a balance between our dreams and God's dreams? Until we here promises like:

Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends and pour out peace. -E T Benson

Yet sometimes God seems so quiet, always letting us choose through His gift of agency, while other times he really speaks up, directing our paths like he did for Moses. We learn from Eve and Adam's story that the first commandment he gives them is to "multiply and replenish the Earth" and many think that is only speaking about child-birth. But it never said multiply and replenish our species, it says "Earth." And we realize that increasing the family is one higher purpose that is wonderful and important, but increasing the Earth's goodness as a whole is also important. And I love how Jody Moore says:

"There will always be more opportunity to make the world a better place. And each of us created in God's image is here to contribute to that in some way. That is part of the plan when we came here to Earth. So why does that feel like such a challenge? Why do so many of us not even know what we want to do? Well, it's because we have disconnected with our own wants and desires."

So we learn that perhaps following God's will is also following our hearts. That God placed desires inside of our hearts, like seeds of fruit. And what does planting fruit do? It grows more fruit trees. It doesn't have to be a major passion that you're aware of to start, for a lot of people, it's just a subtle knock on the door that you want to make room for. The Lord does not want us to obey him based exclusively on willpower. Rather, he wants us to follow him with "full purpose of heart." I heard it said that we need to look at the things that light us up. If something lights us up, we get energy for that thing, and we want to go go go.

When we are alive in our gifts, we are not competing with God, we are cooperating. -Jennifer Finlayson-Fife

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of light. -James 1:17

And yet, there are also seeds inside our hearts that can be dangerous. There is one category of desire that God warns us about. A few things that are generally dangerous for everyone...

Remember when Jesus explains the '4 types of people' in the world in Mark 4? He compares people's hearts to soil. And the seeds of good desires as a mustard seed. One of the groups he explains in this way:

"And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit." He then explained to his apostles later that, "these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful."

So we learn that we need to check our hearts for any seeds of lust that choke out better ones. A sort of good, better, and best starts shaping in our minds. We all have good desires, even as tiny as the smallest seed, but some of those get choked out by the carnal desires of our ego. We care too much about what other people think of us, or we get too caught up in addictive lusts. We should never be controlled by the likes and dislikes of others, nor controlled by carnal desires that stem from prideful ambition.

But if we are humble, and teachable, we learn to school our good desires. We cannot expect to always feel like doing good. We cannot always begin with a pure desire for righteousness, but if we study the consequences of not obeying God's laws, that helps sync our minds and our hearts. And we learn there is a lot of the shadow sides of love we have to go through, in order to know how to live a better Godly love. Because we are all so new at this "human body" thing, we have to experience the faults of others. Some of us will have to suffer, and none of us ever receive a perfect amount of love apart from God. Which is why the scriptures say someday:

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away. Rev. 21:4

And we learn that a relationship with Christ is the soothing balm we need to feel peace in a world that never gets easier, but eventually does end with happily ever after. And if we cultivate our desires, and become willing to become uncomfortable, and fearless in growing our gifts, we naturally are released from trying to please the world, and elevate our egos. We will want to break free from the weeds that choke us when we find a purpose that comes from our hearts and aligns with our faith in Jesus Christ.

I love how Echart Tolle explains, "Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer." Escaping the polarity of the ego, and reaching towards the divinity inside us, helps us learn how to grow in abundant ways.

I delight to do thy will, O my god: yea, thy law is within my heart. Psalm 40:8

Think of all the historical evidence where people operated too much from their ego, and not enough from virtue. Too much from pride, and not enough from humility. Too much from fear, and not enough from trust:

In the language of Jennifer Finlayson-fife, "[the Pharisees] liked the idea that they were better than other people because they lived the rules better. They were uninterested in loving and seeing and caring about all of God’s children. And so they were using religion to prop themselves up at the expense of truth and growth. It’s easier to be in a black and white world. And when we’re afraid, we want to regress into it. Similarly, I would say hatred is easy. Binary thinking is easy. Love is hard. I don’t believe in a God who would let us obey our way into Godhood. Because what the more egocentric brain wants, is I’m going to earn my worthiness. I’m going to basically rise above the human condition and have some control over this. That’s what we want. The natural man in us wants control. We need to think more about what is the God you believe is asking of you? Does it tell you to fly planes into buildings because someone thinks differently than you do? Okay, because there’s not alot of virtue in that notion of God. Or is our belief in God asking us to bring our conscience and our honesty and our humility and our willingness to keep growing and the expectation to love even when we’re not getting the validation or approval or reinforcement that we want right? What does my belief ask of me and am I willing to offer it? In some ways, it’s to forgive life for being so imperfect. If we’re giving away our agency, if we’re going against our conscience, thinking I’ll get rewarded just for going along rather than the harder work of taking real responsibility for ourselves."

None of us begin loving without expecting something in return. That is the stage one - child version of ourselves. When we look at love as something you give, not something you receive, you start to feel a weight lifted, because none of us will ever feel enough love in this life time. God does not want you to obey Him out of compliance. He wants you to trust Him in that living virtuously as you expand your gifts will come with a joy we can't even comprehend in the next life.

Love is a law, not a reward. - Neal. Maxwell

I love when God says to a prophet of old:

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. Behold, I will show unto the Gentiles their weakness, and I will show unto them that faith, hope and charity bringeth unto me—the fountain of all righteousness."

More virtues that work together better than working apart. Charity guides our purposes to transcend ourselves. Faith is knowing God parted the sea for over a million people led by Moses. Hope is the patience that God will part the sea for you and me. When I think of a fountain, I think of the pressure that builds into something strong. This combination of faith, hope, and charity is a potent recipe for executing on your goals.

If you are feeling stuck, and you are feeling like you can't find a purpose outside of bad habits, if you feel like you struggle with a polarity, if you feel like you struggle with a desire that became toxic or addictive for you, and you want to know how to school your passions, God gives us a great secret to overcoming our earthly desires when Christ was sitting at the well while the Apostles went in town to go buy food. He sat and talked with a Samaritan woman, telling her that if she drank from his water, she would never thirst again. She took him literally, and wanted to know where to find a water than makes her never thirsty, so he takes it a step farther and announces who he really is, and shows that he knows all her doings and all her thoughts. She runs off exclaiming to everyone that she has found the Messiah. So we learn about this "living water" from Christ, and wonder how to apply that to our life... and we often skip over the next line in scripture:

"Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." Then his disciples siad to each other, "Could some one have brought him food?" "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don't you have a saying, 'It's still four months until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. John 4 :31-35

And if you skip over this line, and go right back to learning about the Samaritan woman who goes off exclaiming who she met, you lose a pearl inside the story. Christ is teaching that he had a purpose so big, so exciting, and so profitable that he was not even thinking about his carnal appetites. An appetite for food, as big as any appetite in this life. How do we delay gratification? How do we control our appetities? How did Jesus do it? By focusing on a purpose, higher than Himself. "The will of Him who sent me, " he calls it. That is His purpose. He defines it. He doesn't stray from it, and he died for it. And I believe his joy could not be greater because he followed through; he pushed through his anxiety of knowing what came next, the suffering in the garden for all our sins, and the painful fastening to a cross. "Take this cup away from me" he asked; even his purpose was almost too hard to bear. But this is how you school your feelings; leaning on a purpose that is higher than you. Aren't we grateful that He did it for us! That is how you let the spiritual govern the physical inside of you. You will find the endurance of everything and be able to moderate yourself better in every situation when you have a higher purpose. And because He suffered and endured, we can feel enabled:

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. - 2 Tim. 1:7

and we learn that we all have dreams that are worthwhile, and others that we must harness or sacrifice, but finding a purpose that includes faith, hope, and charity, will spring up unto us a manifestation far greater than ourselves:

I end with a line from the Chosen Series, a beautiful series I recommend to anyone:

Jesus:

"We are under the occupation of the enormously powerful Roman Empire. But what if I told you I have something else in mind for my life and yours. Something that will last. A kingdom, not built by hands. Fortress stronger than stone. Would you like to join me in helping to build that?"

Apostle:

"I don’t understand what you are saying? I am not good at anything else."

"Thats what you think."

"That’s what I know. You don’t me."

"Yes I do. Join me. Building a new kingdom. Where better than here with who better than you."

"You could definitely do a lot better than me…and here."

"Leave with me tonight. A new kingdom, eternal value..."

"Whats the pay?"

"There is no pay. At least not in the earthly sense. I am asking you to follow me...

You’d be part of changing the world, become part of a family not of relatives, but a blood bonds just the same, spend your days with some of the most interesting, unfettered, funny, driven, brave, nurturing, smart, strong, passionate, fiery, loyal, loving, imperfect people to ever walk the earth. You will see…and do, things you can not imagine, you will be adored, hated, needed, lost, and found, you will live everywhere, and nowhere, you will lose friends, you will lose all your friends, and your own life, you will go to the ends of the earth, and yet be part of the beginning of the greatest movement on earth, people will say you are a fool, and that I was a fool, and that it was all a lie, they’ll call us heretics, and liars, and frauds, others will celebrate, and venerate your memory and call you a saint, but none of that’s the point, the point… is that you will have said yes to the worlds no, that you hoped against hope, and believed against belief, and that you surrendered everything, and held fast to the very end. Will you follow me?"

And we learn that some of us will die for our greater purpose, like Jesus Christ, his apostles, people like Martin Luther King Jr., and many other prophets and good people. And we know that those with a higher purpose greater than themselves, receive the reward of peace in this life, but more especially, a never-ending peace in the next.

And we learn why charity is so foundational to purpose. The prophets of old tell us a great truth about charity; it really includes sacrifice:

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. -1 Cor. 13: 1-8

And funny enough, the science only matches the principle:

And so consider the words of Viktor Frankl, a pyschiatrist who learned some of his most important lessons as a prisoner in a Nazi death camp during World War II:

"Again and again I admonish my students both in Europe and in America: Don't aim at success...the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursured; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry i tout to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run...in the long run...I say! Success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it."

Your identity comes before your assignment. Your heart-felt purpose is going to get you farther than any amount of willpower.