The average human clamors for the spotlight. The growing child only imagines how to ‘blow’. The educated race for recognition and a Nobel prize. Those less fortunate, a life of luxury: a six-month vacation, twice a year. They would tell the youth, “Catch flights, not feelings.”
The world has managed to twist the meanings of two words, light and purpose. A remarkable feat, because no generation talks about purpose as often as ours. Yet no generation is more lost and mistaken than ours. It begs the question, what’s missing? How do seven billion people miss it?
Light, because we have forgotten the Father of lights. The only light we recognize is the one of attention, of recognition. It’s not light if it’s obscure or hidden; it’s not light without the applause. This new definition makes the light of the Word dull, vague, vintage, fit for Sunday mornings and cute sticker notes. We forget the weight, the vibrance, the dazzling effect of His light.
Purpose, because a synonym for it is material success. And we prefer synonyms to the truth, fiction to life.
We package it as progress, style, book covers, TV shows. We left the Genesis command to worship for a pot of beef stew. Purpose, because it’s a nice-sounding word only.
Awake, awake, awake us! Wake us, Lord Jesus. Inspire us once again; let your light pierce through our scales. Ignite your purpose in us; let it burn with an eternal flame. Take us farther in you, beyond the reaches of this world, beyond deception and corruption. Awake us! Let our transfiguration go deeper than our skins, that our hearts beat to the rhythm of ‘thy kingdom come.’ Make us burning witnesses, guided by light, driven by purpose.
Samuel Chisom Ofonegbu.