The 210 Project

ABC’s Once Upon a Time hooked Shannon and me.  I don’t yet think I would put it in the class of 24, but the producers of Lost have succeeded in creating a plot that moves and strikes like Jack Bauer.  The show follows the town of Storybrook, Maine, a collection of individuals whose real identity lies in a fairy tale world of happy endings.  Only the evil queen has cursed them to this new world where their memories of love have been erased.  The show flashes back and forth between the two worlds, Storybrook and the fairy tale world, and both stories hinge upon the other.  That’s the short description.  The premise of the show illustrates a frightening metaphor for our spiritual lives.  The people of Storybrook live blind to their own purposes because they’ve been stripped of their identity.

I share that story as introduction of a book I want to pass along.  Or maybe it’s an experience.  My uncle recently published 210Project: Discover Your Place in God’s Story.  The book begins with two questions that haunt us in the moments when we unsubscribe from the noise of our lives:

Why am I here?

What does God really want me to do with my life?

The authors write that the answers to those questions flow out of Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”  One of the things I appreciate most is that the book is broken up into three parts: 1. Identity 2. Good Works 3. Life Mission.  When we let any of those three bleed into the other, we develop a warped view of God, justification, and sanctification.  And the effects surely lead us away from the freedom Paul proclaims in Galatians and the life that Jesus promises.

I’ll share a few things that have stuck with me since my first reading of 210Project:

• Finding our identity and living it out is a community experience.  To pursue such a process alone contradicts the nature of the God who created us in his image.
• When you have found your calling and purpose, it will serve the same purpose as the UPS man that brings a package to your door.  The delivery is not the UPS man but rather the package.  Your calling and gifts are for the purpose of delivering some sort of package to someone else.  If I’m honest, I want everyone else to be a delivery man to me.  And when it comes to my calling, I want those to whom I deliver packages to celebrate me more than the package.
• True friendship is an experience of finding the people who are looking for you.
• In Colossians 1, we learn that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.  Just as Jesus glorifies the Father, our ultimate purpose is to make the Invisible God visible to a lost and hurting world with our lives of love.

The book becomes an interactive experience with online exercises and activities that draw out, confirm, and solidify your passions and giftings.  Check out the interactive website: http://www.the210project.com/

Advertisements