Pursuing Your PurposeSample

If you are going to carry out your purpose, it will force you to put your priorities in order. You must determine what is most important and what is not. You will have to decide what you need to start doing, what you need to continue doing, and what you need to stop doing. And you need to learn to say “no,” even to good things.

On a trip to New England a few years ago, I decided to visit the home of Dwight L. Moody. Moody was a great evangelist in the late nineteenth century. His crusades drew great crowds and brought many people to Christ. Moody lived in Northfield, Massachusetts. The home where he was born and the house where he died stand close together. He and his wife are buried behind his birthplace.

Stored in his birthplace are several Bibles that Moody used in his lifetime. In many of these, he wrote notes or slogans that he heard, probably to use while preaching. In one of the Bibles I picked up, Moody had written, “Every cause is not a call.”

I don’t know when Moody wrote those words or why. It may have been shortly after the Great Chicago Fire in October 1871. Moody preached in Chicago the night the fire began. Many of the people who heard Moody preach weren’t Christians, and they didn’t respond that night. As a result, Moody realized the urgency of sharing the gospel and bringing people to a life with Christ. 

Before the fire, Moody was involved in many different projects—good ones, like the YMCA, Sunday school promotion, and publishing. But after the fire, Moody rearranged his priorities and focused on what he believed was his purpose in life: preaching in mass meetings and pleading for unbelievers to trust Christ.

When I read Moody’s comment, I, too, changed my priorities.

If you want to know your priorities—not what you say they are, but what they really are—there are two ways to find out: Look at your bank account, and examine your schedule. How you spend your money and your time reflect your true priorities.

Paul set an example by putting his purpose first and everything else after it. That is why he could write “one thing I do” (Philippians 3:13) when he described his walk with God. He was disciplined about his priorities.