Purpose, Vision, Cheshire Cat

After Alice had been wandering around in Wonderland for a while, she came to a crossroads where the path she was on hit another path and stopped. The other path stretched from left to right, and she had to pick which way to go. The Cheshire Cat appeared, and she asked him, "Which path shall I take?"

"That depends where you want to go. If you do not know where you want to go, it doesn’t really matter which path you take!”    -Cheshire Cat

The scriptures have a similar message, with a bite:

"Where there is no vision, the people perish."    - Proverbs 29:18

Over the past year, my thinking has turned often to the question of identity. I think I even blogged about it once or twice. Well, after a person figures out who they are, the next logical question could well be, "So, what do I do now?" Or, "What is my purpose?"

I have something to say about this topic, which might take a few posts to get out. It is very helpful to me to write out what I'm thinking. Not many of my blog posts have that much of me in them, but I think most of my best ones do.

Anyway. My focus on "focus", or "vision", or "purpose" got started a few weeks ago when I went to the leader (bishop) of the local congregation. I wanted to ask him what his "focus" for the ward was that year, or what direction he wanted to see the members take their lives and their worship of Jesus. He told me it was, "Find someone that you can help to take the next step."

That, combined with a few other events, made me realize that I didn't have a personal Vision. I didn't have a purpose that was my own. So, I prayerfully started looking for a good one, and in the coming days I'll explain what I came up with.