Searching for Meaning and Purpose: Part 1 – My Search

Nov 29, 2014 2474

by Tom Durst

man and landscapeMy spiritual journey has been a very exciting one for at every turn new revelations of the greatness and faithfulness of God keep unfolding to me and I suppose my life center could be summarized something like this: “Surely the Lord is in this place.”

The Presence of God has been more real and compelling to me these many years by far than anything in the world of the five senses. Everything that we need to do on the temporal plane to live has always been in a very secondary place to me for the reality of the unseen Kingdom of God has totally absorbed my thinking. This Reality is so compelling that it simply overshadows everything else. This is my destiny. For that reason I often find myself unable to relate to or even understand the ways of living that most people follow. I’m in the world but not of it (see John 17:15-16)

From the very first time that I started to read the Bible early in 1951 to this present day this book for me is indeed very living and powerful (see Hebrews 4:12). I feel the very Life of God flow into my being as I peruse the sacred pages. This is totally awesome and I wish I could literally give this Life to everyone else but since this is not possible I share largely by the way I choose to live and more specifically in word when such a door is open (see 1 Peter 3:15).

Early in 1951 I was sooo. . . hungry and felt inwardly like my life was empty of meaning. About the only Christian teaching you could say I had heard up to this point was from listening to the Unshackled radio program from the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. This broadcast began around 1950 as I recall. My folks quit going to church when I was pre-school and my mother considered herself to be a backslidden believer in God. I did see her with her Bible open very often. My folks fought a lot and our home was very unhappy indeed. I could see early in 1951 that the family would break up soon and I needed an anchor in my life that I didn’t have. I was desperate for some sense of meaning and purpose.

When I first read from the Bible and some other Christian literature that was around the house I began to sense a peace and fulfilment that I could never have imagined possible! Something began to stir in my spirit that is still stirring today, more than ever if such is possible. I began to partake of the fountain of living waters and this has never run dry (see John 4:10, 13, 14; 6:35; 7:37-38).

Read Part 2 here.

– Tom Durst (Used with permission from the Union with God Devotional Forum)

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