Lisa Brenninkmeyer - Walking With Purpose: Seven Priorities That Make Life Work

WALKING WITH PURPOSE

FIRST EDITION
Copyright 2013 Lisa Brenninkmeyer
Published by Beacon Publishing.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

ISBN 978-1-937509-44-6

Dynamic Catholic and Be Bold. Be Catholic. are registered trademarks of The Dynamic Catholic Institute.

Book Cover Design by:
Jillian Buhl Melissa Overmyer Allison Taylor

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Printed in the United States of America.

This book is dedicated to Julie Ricciardi, my dear friend and tireless partner in ministry. Im better for knowing you (Proverbs 27:17).
Im so grateful that you love Walking with Purpose as much as I do.

Two are better than one,
because they have a good reward for their toil.
For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow;
but woe to him who is alone when he falls
and has not another to lift him up.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

If you picked up this book hoping to learn how to walk with purpose from someone who has completely figured out life, I might disappoint you a little. If you want to listen to someone whose decisions are always wise and well thought out, then my decision to add a fifty-pound puppy to our already busy family mix might rule me out as a candidate. Let me digress for a moment and just say that a fifty-pound puppy is a very large animal. When you already have seven children and all the paraphernalia that accompanies them, a wise choice would be a smaller creature. Before you judge me, may I say that I actually meant to buy a much smaller dog. And I thought I had. But when I went for my first vet visit, I was told that we had a very large puppy. Oh, no, I assured her. Shes not going to be large. Shes only going to come up to my knee. Thats why I picked this breed. The vet looked at me quizzically, and asked if I had seen the parents and grandparents of our puppy. I had not, but I pointed out that her ancestors were standard poodles, therefore small. She quickly corrected me by showing me a photo of a standard poodle, which is actually quite large. But by this point, Bailey the puppy was a member of the family, and I could hardly cause my children untold trauma by returning her to the breeder.

One would think that this would have taught me the very important lesson of tending to detailsevery detail, or you never know what might happen. But then a storm hit our city, and we lost electricity for more than a week. This meant that we didnt have waterwe couldnt flush toilets, take a shower, or otherwise enjoy life. In the midst of this, Bailey got an ear infection, and her ears needed to be diligently treated with ointment twice a day and then dutifully massaged. And in my defense, this is what I did. And I was very proud of myself, since I find it hard to remember to keep giving my children their antibiotics all the way to the very end of the dose. But the devil is in the details, and after five days of commenting that she seemed to be getting worse, not better, and seeing her continually shaking her head like a maniac, I realized that I had been using superglue instead of antibiotic ointment. Bailey survived the ordeal, but whenever she wont come when we call her, the kids just look at me with raised eyebrows.

I struggle with getting my act together, just like you do. We all experience some days that are like the sweet spot on the tennis racket. We wake up in a good mood after a full nights sleep, everyone in the family eats well, we cross off everything on our to-do lists, and no major crisis occurs. But more often than not, life doesnt go that smoothly.

There are a lot of days when we dont get enough sleep. We eat whats left on our childrens plates. We overschedule ourselves, then rush around and arrive late. Kids have dirty diapers just when we need to walk out the door. Money is tight. Loved ones get cancer. Spouses are unfaithful. All these circumstances can tempt us to say, Ill start exploring how God wants me to be living the day things slow down and are a little more under control.

I want to encourage you not to wait for that day. Instead, Id like you to see today as the perfect time to begin walking with purpose. Why? Because what you are experiencing is real life. We may occasionally have times when things are perfectly under control, but we need to learn how to walk with purpose regardless of our circumstances. Each season of life carries with it chaos and troubles. If a calm schedule is the prerequisite for purposeful, peaceful living, we will never achieve it. Whether you find yourself in a period of calm or chaos, why not join me as, together, we begin to walk with purpose?

Walking with purpose requires that we come to grips with what ultimately matters. We need to understand why we are here on earth. The reason we are here is far bigger than personal fulfillment, inner peace, or happiness. Its bigger than raising a family or having a career. The reason we are here is because God wanted us to be here. You were made by God and for God. If we dont look at life from that perspective, nothing will make sense.

This is what Saint Paul had to say about his life focus:

It is not that I have already taken hold of it or have already attained perfect maturity, but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it, since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ [Jesus]. Brothers, I for my part do not consider myself to have taken possession. Just one thing: Forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of Gods upward calling in Christ Jesus.

Saint Paul wasnt saying that he had it all perfectly together. But he kept his eye on the goal. He knew that God was calling him to something better. He wasnt going to turn back. Instead, he was determined to focus on the prize so that he could experience everything that God had planned for him.

Saint Pauls faithfulness to God, focus on his mission, and determination not to compromise literally changed the world. He didnt do this by floating along the river of life, letting his circumstances guide him. If we want to be women who walk purposefully and experience all that God has for us in this life, then we, like Saint Paul, are going to need to focus and prioritize. There simply isnt enough time in the day to do everything that your loved ones tell you is important and the things that our culture values, and still do the things that God is calling you to do. If youre interested in joining me on the journey, you will have to make choiceslike what to pack for the trip.