This post is part of our "Purpose Driven Life" book study, the first official Christian Boylove Forum book study. You should have read chapter 1 of The Purpose Driven Life before participating in the discussions on this thread. If you do not own the book, you can read the first chapter for free here: http://www.purposedrivenlife.com/en-US/AboutUs/AboutTheBook/FirstSevenChapters.htm Being the kick off post, it has been posted as Webmaster, but future posts will be posted under either my own (Blackstone) or Cat's nicks.

Day 1: It all starts with God

This is probably a fairly basic chapter for most of us who are already believers. Even so, it can be rather disappointing to reflect on our own lives and see how often we fail at something so simple. So often in our lives, we worry about ourselves, our futures, our well being: whether we will ever have children, whether we will marry, whether we will be alone in our old age, whether we will ever have boys in our lives, etc. as if life were really about us; but it's not. That's not to say that wanting those things is wrong, but that by focusing on those questions we are missing out on the real reason for life which has less to do with us and more to do with God.

As I read this, I began to realize that if God made us and he has a purpose for our lives, then the search for why we are who we are is the same as the search for our purpose. We are who we are because that is who God needed us to be in order to fulfill his purpose for our lives. God created us to be who we are for a reason and if we seek out that reason, we will also discover why we are the way we are, and that includes why God either created us to be BLs or allowed us to be so.

Like the book says, we have so often on this very forum proposed ideas born from psychology, science, genetics, and human understanding in an effort to understand why we have the desires we do. So often we look into our past or into our genes, but the answer isn't there. We often look in the physical world for an answer that is ultimately spiritual. We can only really discover the answer to this question by seeking God. That's not to say that there may not be a gene or an environmental factor or whatever, but rather that regardless of what the physical mechanism is, the greater question is a spiritual, why am I am the way I am? and that answer is spiritual.

I really liked the Question to Consider for today: How can I remind myself that life is really about living for God, not myself?

Your thoughts?

--Blackstone