If you don’t know where God wants you in seven years, you may be having a difficult time knowing what to do right now. Clarity of purpose is fundamental to fulfilling calling and destiny. Clarity of purpose will produce passion for purpose and serve as a basis for cutting off distractions and eliminating substitutes.
Long ranges goals tell you what to do right now. For most leaders, this involves a revelation of identity including created disposition, calling, charismatic gifts, and life’s work vision as a basis for a plan of action. This is also the basis for accountability that empowers personal transformation necessary to become the person who can accomplish the purpose.
The year 2020 isn’t magical or significant by means of having numeric uniqueness as much as it is a clear mark on history at which a measurement of where we are can be taken. It serves as a clear marker of measurement for the kingdom worldwide to discuss how well we are getting God what He wants.
In seven years I will be 65. Born in 1955 – It was a very good year – I remember when my second grade teacher wrote on the chalkboard how old each of the class members would be in the year 2000. I thought then, as I’m pretty certain she did, that the world would be a very different place. I had no clue! Ruthanne and I drove past that spot where that school sat recently, through the town of my early days, past the homestead that is sadly abandoned, and I realized what 50 years can bring.
And, I thought, “God can do more in seven years with surrender and prepared leaders than we can imagine.” In other words, the pace of history leading up to this time was slower in terms of fulfilling purpose, but now we are in a season of accelerated fulfillment of purposes – things that were in the ground, germinating for a generation, are about to break the surface and come more quickly to fullness and fulfillment.
I see much as the life of Jesus was “running silent” for three decades until John the Baptist, as a catalyst of Awakening, began to declare and demonstrate preparation for the kingdom, then introducing Jesus, the Father spoke and the Spirit manifested in history in a brand new way! Immediately, the fullness of time that had brought the Son of God stepped into an accelerated pace of fullness and fulfillment that marked history so powerfully the world still measures history by its influence and impact.
Consider the next seven years in that light, and then consider your own life’s work. How will the measurement of your life at 2020 look in that light? Consider the level of passion you now possess for purpose, passion that moves and motivates every part of your life toward destiny. Consider that God is doing something in your generation that cannot be measured by markers of the past but requires you to look forward to markers in the future. “Looking the Jesus” means looking to where He stands at the finished line, the future mark to which He is taking you. Laying aside every weight is removing distractions and limitations. Laying aside the sin that so easily sits upon us means removing the substitutes that are answer to the enemy’s “anything but what God wants” methods.
If you sense “there should be more” it is a good indication that you need a clearer understanding of purpose so that you can more powerfully invest a greater depth of passion, to live a motivated life that is effectively clearing hurdles and “keeping you in your lane” as you run an accelerated race.
