Purposeless Pursuits

Whilst watching the world cup, I was caused to go back to the beginning of all languages at the tower of Babel. I asked God why He gave us many languages. If you are familiar with the story, you’ll notice that God had blessed the then existing men (Noah and his family) to multiply and fill the earth, but the construction of the tallest tower (then) was going to cause them to stay put and not scatter far and wide.

They were departing from the primary God-ordained purpose after the flood, which was to multiply and fill the earth. His ‘punishment’ therefore, was not all that bad. It forced the humans to gang up in cliques of those who spoke the same language, and they scattered away from Babel.

A typical example today of the error that happened at Babel could be misappropriation of funds. If say you were given funds to specifically pay tuition, but you ended up buying an expensive or luxurious item, the purpose of the money in the first place would have been ‘defiled’ or corrupted. In other terms, I’d say the original pursuit of the money was ‘tuition’. When it was directed to another item, it lost its purpose—the original mandate assigned to it.

There are many purposeless pursuits today. And they always have consequences. Some of these consequences are as bad as death. A person desiring marriage has a pursuit. But if they can’t answer the question ‘why marriage?’ then there isn’t purpose attached to that pursuit.

So you need a car! But why? Is it to just show off in front of your friends! Please your peers? Can’t there be more to that?

The problem with such is, someone may spend all their income to get this liability, and soon, they will be desiring to sell it because it’s stressed them a lot, having taken more in payment of fuel and repairs.

The marriage, the cars — they all are important. But if we can’t answer the whys to have them, then perhaps we do not need them as much as we think we do.

On the other hand, we may have pursuits with purposes that don’t move heaven, or which are not in sync with heaven.

Hannah wanted to have a child. Great pursuit. But its purpose was shallow. She wanted to brag about it in front of her co-wife, so that her husband could love her more. But she was already favored in his eyes. God kept her womb shut until the purpose to the pursuit was elevated, or deepened.

She vowed that she’d give the child God would give her back to serve Him. And that’s what became of Samuel. He rose to be a judge and prominent prophet due to the change in prayer by his mother. If she’d received the child with the purpose of just impressing Peninah, then the verse that says ‘He ordained you as a prophet before you were formed in your mother’s womb’ would not have manifested for Samuel.

Besides having pursuits without purpose to them, we’d have purpose to pursuits whose mortality rate is high or whose foundation is set on sinking sand, making the purpose irrelevant, or ineffective, not lasting; and this could affect something else in the long run, for example; if Samuel came, but his mother had not dedicated him to serve God. He’d have been just an ordinary Samuel! Would he even have been named Samuel? We’ll never know!

His entire life’s trajectory was affected by one prayer with significant purpose!

The other facet to this would be us understanding our positions and promotions. Esther was favored by the king. Initially, the pursuit was clear, but Esther did not know that it had a purpose to it. Soon Mordecai told her that she had been chosen for a time as that (to ensure the saving of the people of Jewish blood) and if she did not yield to this purpose and pursue the latter half of it, Mordecai promised her that the purpose would remain, but the person to carry it out would change. This means we might have never heard about Esther!

Esther, rather, reconciled her position she’d acquired through pursuit to the purpose later revealed, and that led to her greatness after achieving the purpose’s end.

From this perspective, I come with a question from the previous perspective, about inquiring from the Lord. Many of us have found ourselves in positions of promotion or situations or families that we don’t know the ‘whys’ to, just like Esther. In fact we’d have applied for some things like promotions, and they were granted. But we have to ask questions like;

Why have I been promoted? Why am I in a family such as this? Why am I so and so’s friend?

And this is especially for places where we find ourselves without effort.

There are also things — yes even in God — that we may want to pursue, but there is no purpose at all to their pursuit. For example, I’ve seen many young people yearn to be ‘deep’ in the things of God. They want more revelation. They want to describe what the creatures in Revelation could mean, but like Daniel, we need to allow God to choose what He wishes to reveal to us, and not us to lust for them.

Daniel wondered about something I can’t quite put a finger on, but God didn’t answer him. See what He said;

Daniel 12:8-9 I heard what he said, but I did not understand what he meant. So I asked, “How will all this finally end, my lord?” But he said, “Go now, Daniel, for what I have said is kept secret and sealed until the time of the end.

Another time, He was told this;

“But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end;” (12:4)

On the contrary, many people read the Bible, not to connect to God, but to win a religious argument they’ll encounter soon, or to sound closer to God than others. This all goes back to the reason I gave earlier—what are the whys?

In such moments is when the devil shows up and disguises himself as an angel of light, and tells one of things that seem to be from God, and yet are not!

This is what happened to Eve. I am not saying she was lusting for the forbidden fruit. She was minding her business, when the crafty devil sold an idea, convincing her to a pursuit, a pursuit that had a false purpose.

Thank God we, unlike Eve, are not ignorant of the devil’s devices. (2 Cor 2:11) We should as well be able to exalt God’s voice above other voices, for the devil won’t come as a literal serpent today. He will be in your head.

You then need to be wearing the full armour of God (Eph 6:11) so that you stand against his wiles when he brings purposeless pursuits.

Watch out for any of the times you find yourself in any of these subsets. And may God help guide you, being the light, to the path that always carries purpose as you pursue anything.

May you not divert from the original purpose intended. May your pursuits be in sync with Heaven’s. May their purposes have deep foundations. May you understand your part in positions, places and promotions. And may you not list for things whose whys you can’t answer!

May He guide your steps, that they may not slip or drift away from purpose! (Psalm 37:23,31)