Washington Irving is credited with having made the remark that “a barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.” Another way of saying the same thing is that “the race is not always to the swift but to those who keep on running.”

One of the encouraging aspects about God is that you don’t have to be an expert or anything out of the ordinary for him to use you. God uses people just like you and me. Consider, for example, the men Jesus chose to be his disciples: a couple of fishermen, a despised tax gatherer, a traitor, and so on. They did, however, spend three years with Jesus, the Master Teacher to equip them for service.

Jesus himself didn’t attend college or seminary (or the equivalent in his day) but chose as his profession to be a carpenter as was his earthly father.

For God to use us, all we need to do is to be available and faithful to his calling. One of my daily prayers is: “Dear God, I’m available. Please make me usable and use me today to be as Christ to my family, to someone in need, and in some way to every life I touch.”

What a difference we Christians would make in our family, in our church, and in our world if every one of us would pray this prayer and mean it—every day!

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, I’m available. Please make me usable and use me today to be as Christ to my family, to someone in need, and in some way to every life I touch. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 Corinthians 1:26-28 (NIV).

Jean Nidetch, a 214-pound homemaker desperate to lose weight, went to the New York City Department of Health where she was given a diet devised by Dr. Norman Jolliffe. Two months later, discouraged about the 50 plus pounds still to go, she invited six overweight friends home to share the diet and talk about how to stay on it. This was in 1963.

Today, some 50 years later, one million members attend 250,000 Weight Watchers meetings in 24 countries every week. Why was Nidetch able to help people take control of their lives? To answer that, she tells a story. When she was a teenager, she used to cross a park where she saw mothers gossiping while the toddlers sat on their swings, with no one to push them.

“I’d give them a push,” says Nidetch.

“And you know what happens when you push a kid on a swing? Pretty soon he’s pumping, doing it himself. That’s what my role in life is—I’m there to give others a push.”²

And isn’t that what Christianity and serving God is all about? We’re here to give others “a push” to help them get up when they have fallen down and to get on their own two feet. And who knows what might be the eventual effect?

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to be a ‘good pusher’ to help those who need a helping hand when they are down or in need. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Galatians 6:2 (NLT).

2. The online source is no longer available but you can see Jean Nidetch’s story online at: http://tinyurl.com/ygpzn6z.

Another way for enriching your personal life is by investing your life in a worthwhile cause. Everybody needs something to live for that is bigger than him or herself—a noble or worthwhile cause into which he/she can put his/her best efforts.

A few years ago I was going through a particularly difficult time. Had it not been for both my work and an outside project, I’m sure I would have cracked under the strain. My work is helping people discover more meaningful personal and spiritual values and my outside project at that time was building my own home with my own hands—both worthwhile causes.

A creative use of one’s talents is also essential for giving meaning to life. God gave us all talents to use. When we aren’t using them, we feel unfulfilled.

One man I know was very successful in his work but he was feeling very unfulfilled in it. He felt his job was too small and that he wasn’t using his best talents. So he took the risk, quit his job and went back to college to train for the work he really wanted to do. He struggled for several years but today he has built a work that is helping many people, and this has greatly enhanced his purpose for living.

This is why I believe it is important to discover what your best talent is (or talents are), get the training you need to sharpen that talent, and find a place where you can use it—either in your job, in a hobby, in your church, or with a volunteer organization. God’s purpose for your life will definitely involve the use of your gifts and talents in ways to help others.

Faith, hope, and charity. The poet Goethe lists nine requisites for meaningful living. They are as follows: “Health enough to make work a pleasure. Wealth enough to support your needs. Strength enough to battle with difficulties and overcome them. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor. Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others. Faith enough to make real the things of God. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.”

There is, I am sure, no greater way to increase your hope for the future and enrich your personal life than by learning to love others more fully, by developing a vital faith in God, and discovering and fulfilling your God-given life purpose. Why not tell God right now that you want to do that and confirm your decision by becoming more involved as a volunteer in community service, a mission organization, and/or in your church or chapel. If you are not involved in a local church, ask God to help you find the church that is right for you.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to increase my hope and trust in you and thereby renew my strength and, as I serve you with meaningful purpose, help me to soar on wings as eagles, run and not be weary, and walk and not faint. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Isaiah 40:31 (NIV).

It is purpose—not wealth or success—that makes life worthwhile. Purpose makes even drudgery acceptable and is an immunization against many sicknesses. How then can we find more meaning and purpose to life? The following tips can help:

Getting out of yourself. Another grandmother I know had a large family to bring up and was widowed reasonably early in life. She had her share of heartaches but never allowed these to get her down. She lived a full and active life and had a wonderful gift for passing on cheer to those around her. Her secret was helping other people. She was an active member of her church and had a deep conviction that one of the basic purposes of the church was to help people less fortunate than herself. One way she did this was through years of hospital visitation to pass on a word of comfort to the sick.

No matter how busy we are or how many problems we have, we can all find little ways to bring cheer to those around us—like bringing home a rose for your wife, a special treat for the children, a favor for a neighbor. Visit someone who is shut-in. Write a note, use your telephone, or send an email to tell a friend you appreciate him or her. Words of encouragement and acts of kindness do wonders for both the giver and the receiver.

A vital part of finding happiness and contentment is found in discovering something more important than yourself to believe in, by helping others, and by directing your thoughts and actions towards them. Egotists are seldom happy.

Love and friendship are also essential for giving life meaning and purpose. Without wholesome relationships, which give us a sense of belonging, we live as islands alone in a very large universe.

So take time for friends. They are a priceless asset in life. “Do you want to make friends?” asks Dale Carnegie, who gives the following advice. “Be friendly. Forget yourself. You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

And remember, as another has said, “The person all wrapped up in himself makes a very small package.”

To be concluded …

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to live life beyond myself, love people, and therein serve you by serving others. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Ecclesiastes 9:10 (NIV).

Several years ago one grandmother I know sold off the old family home, pulled up her roots, left many of her friends and activities behind, and moved to a retirement village in another town. She had been healthy and energetic all her life, but in the last year after her move she aged considerably and developed a terminal illness.

At age 65 another friend of mine retired from being a full-time minister of a large church and set up a full-time counseling center and wrote his first book. His book became a bestseller and he has since written ten more. At age 80 he had slowed down but was still counseling and writing.

What made the difference between these two people? Like many elderly people who retire or move to another place, the first person suffered deeply from the loss of friends, her home of many years, and the activities she was used to. She became lonely and life for her seemed to lose its meaning. She had no real purpose to carry her through this time of major change and readjustment.

The second person, however, had something to live for long before his retirement. He just continued it after “retirement.”

Loneliness, emptiness, boredom, and lack of purpose are all a very real part of modern man’s dilemma. They are indicative of our failure to find meaning for living and they show up in the alarming abuse of alcohol and other drugs, and in the high depression and suicide rate.

In America, for example, the most affluent country on earth, some 40,000 people take their own lives each year, while it is estimated that ten times that number attempt to. That means in our country one person out of every 6,000 commits suicide each year. And there are countless others who, while living in the midst of abundance, to quote Henry D. Thoreau, live lives of “quiet desperation.”

The tragedy in life, however, is not death, but rather, as Albert Schweitzer once said, “what dies inside a man [or woman] while he/she lives.” A person dies inside when he has no meaningful purpose outside of himself for which to live.

To be continued …

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to discover my God-given life purpose and then, with your help, employ all of my powers for the achievement of this purpose. And please grant that what I contribute will help make the world in which I live a better place for others to live. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. The Apostle Paul in Philippians 1:21-22 (NIV).

Haim Potok, a Jewish rabbi, scholar and writer, was born into an orthodox Jewish family in 1929. He grew up in New York City and started writing fiction when he was only sixteen years old.²

Repeatedly his Polish immigrant parents would keep telling him, “Haim, be a brain surgeon. You will make a lot of money and you will save a lot of people from dying.”

Time and again they would give him the same advice, “Haim, be a brain surgeon. You will make a lot of money and you will save a lot of people from dying.”

However, Heim wanted to be a writer and after repeated advice from both his mother and father telling him what he should do with his life, he shouted back at his mother, “I don’t want to stop people from dying. I want to teach them how to live.”³

Speaking personally I spent many years gaining an education that taught me many things—but never how to live. I had to learn that in the “College of Hardknocks!”

True, making a living is very important but learning how to live is much more important. And that’s what God’s Word, the Bible, is all about. As God said to Joshua some 4,000 years ago if you follow all of my laws, “Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to get my priorities straight so that I will always live in harmony with your Word and become prosperous and successful as you define these qualities. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Joshua 1:7-8 (NIV).

2. SparkNotes, http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/chosen/context.html

3. From a sermon by Tod Bolsinger, San Clemente Presbyterian Church, San Clemente, California.