Discovering Our Very Best
Welcome to the Discovering Our Very Best Podcast, hosted by Chris Conley and Debbie Ellis. The goal of this podcast is to share thoughts, stories and ideas enabling you to become all that God created you to be. Always remember, when there is hope in the future, there is power in the present. Brought to you by Darin Olson with Edward Jones Investments.
Discovering Our Very Best
Legacy, Aging and Preparing for Eternity: Episode 3
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Welcome to the Discovering Our Very Best Podcast, hosted by Chris Conley and Debbie Ellis. The goal of this podcast is to share thoughts, stories and ideas enabling you to become all that God created you to be. Always remember, when there is hope in the future, there is power in the present.
Today on the podcast, Chris and Deb take a look into Godly mission, purpose and vision.
Brought to you by Darin Olson with Edward Jones Investments.
Welcome to Discovering Our Very Best podcast with Chris Conley and Deb Ellis. Stay tuned for after this message from our sponsor.
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SPEAKER_00Welcome to Discovering Our Very Best Podcast with Chris Conley and Deb Ellis. The goal of this podcast is to share thoughts, stories, and ideas enabling you to become all that God created you to be. Always remember, when there is hope in the future, there is power in the present.
SPEAKER_03We're back for our next episode. This is Chris Conley, and I'm here with Debbie Ellis. And uh if you remember the last time we talked about legacy, aging, preparing for eternity, today we're going to flip it to uh purpose, mission, and vision. And a little bit of the research that I've done, people put those in different orders. And I have to confess myself that uh I can see how it seems like mission would always be towards the end because it's like the daily input. But uh some people talk about purpose as which is our why as being first, and then other people talk about vision, which is our where are we going being first. And I can understand both ways of thinking because I want to know where I'm going, but I also need to understand why. So we'll we'll talk more about that as as time goes on, though.
SPEAKER_01Well, it kind of reminds me of that story that I know we've all heard. In fact, oh a few years back, I spoke at the graduation for BHS, and I used this story and I've used it with students, you know, sure throughout the years. And you've probably all heard it, they say the story started with a professor, and it's called the mayonnaise jar and two cups of coffee is how they had it. Okay. But the story goes that a professor stood before his philosophy class and he had some items in front of him to demonstrate the point he was making that day. And he wordlessly picked up these items and he had a huge, big, empty mayonnaise jar. And he proceeded to fill it with certain items. And the first one he started with was golf balls. You'd like that, Chris, right? So he put the golf balls in and he asked the students if the jar was full because it was completely full of golf balls. And they said, sure, yeah, it was. But then the professor picked up a box of pebbles and he poured them into the jar. And of course, although they said it was filled, he put the pebbles in and he shook the jar lightly, made sure it was up to the top, and the pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. And then he asked the students again, is the jar full? And of course, they agreed it was. Then the professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. And of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked them again, is the jar full? And the students responded, you know, unanimously, yes, it's full, it's full. So then the professor took two cups of coffee from under the table and he poured the entire contents into the jar, and then it really was full. So the students laughed because they could see what his point was. Now, said the professor, you know, when they stopped laughing, I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things, your family, your children, your health, your friends, your favorite passions. And if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. So, you know, even though you can add things, the important things are in there first. The pebbles are the other things that matter, like your job, your house, and your car. The sand is everything else, kind of like the small stuff they say in life. If you put the sand into the jar first, he continued, there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls, right? So the same goes for life. If you spend, you know, all your time and your energy on the small stuff that really doesn't matter. There's a whole book on that, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03Don't sweat the small stuff. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01You won't you'll never have room for the things that are really important. Yeah. So at the end, he said, pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness and play with your children, take time for those you love, get your medical checkups, worry about your health, take your spouse out to dinner, do all those things that sometimes we want to do, but we push those back in our lives. We forget that. And for you, he would say, play another 18, right, Chris? Sure. So there will always be time to clean the house and do right the chores such as that.
SPEAKER_03Kind of like the Mary Martha story, too.
SPEAKER_01Right. Oh, that's perfect.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That does.
SPEAKER_03I as you read that, I was thinking of m as a grandparent when my grandkids were small. A big difference I saw between myself raising my children versus having the grandchildren was that when there was things to do and I was trying to teach them, I was very impatient because time was important. And I would try to teach, but at the same time I would I would just finish the job. And then as a grandparent, I'd say, today we're gonna work in the garden or we're gonna do this or that, and no matter what, I don't care if we get anything else done, we're gonna you're gonna do it all yourself. And I've always said if someone looked at my phone, my pictures, they would think I have child labor laws I've violated because my my grandkids have done a lot, you know. And it's because of that patience, you know, that I think you take that phase of your life. Right.
SPEAKER_01Of of really teaching them. Yeah. And that's important. Oh, and the thing uh the last thing with the professor was he then poured a cup of coffee out and he said, and don't forget to share coffee with a friend to take time for things like that. And that's what you're saying with grandchildren, you take more time.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_01And that's so critical.
SPEAKER_03You know, just to kind of go through these again one more time with a little bit more clarity, the purpose I've understood is the why. So a well-defined purpose serves as a compass for all of our decisions. So I think that's a good way to think of it. That compass keeps us pointing straight north. The mission, daily, what we do, how to achieve our goals, it's our action plan. So it's like the route we take where the purpose was, the reason that you set off to begin with. And then the vision is where we're going or the destination. You know, I I'll share a vision story with you and then you I think you've got one too. One that that's really stuck in my mind is uh I think it was a World War II time, a plane bombed uh aircraft carrier, and there's like eleven hundred men on this aircraft carrier, and uh several died with a blast. But then uh also they there's like nine hundred guys in the water that survived and eleven of them were separated from the from the big group. And during that time there was a young lieutenant or captain, whatever you might be called, and he kept trying to encourage the guys. He said, You know, think of your family back home. You know, this is going to be a story that we're gonna tell them how we survived this. And they had sharks nipping at their feet and they were having to kick off and everything. And uh this went on for over three days that they they weren't found. And at the end of that three days, the eleven men all all survived, and a lot of them attribute it to the vision that this supervisor had painted for them because he asked them to keep looking at, you know, your loved ones are are concerned for you, you know, we'd hang on for them. And uh they said two-thirds of the men on the other side of the ship perished because apparently they didn't get that encouragement and they just lost hope. So I think when we when we don't have that vision for better times ahead, it's easy to just give up and uh throw in the towel. But that's an inspiring story, I think.
SPEAKER_01It sure is. Yeah. It does encourage you. And going back to when you talked about purpose, I think you can throw the word passion in there too. Yeah, I think. Whether it parallels it exactly, but depending on our purpose, we can become very passionate about it. And we should. Right. We should. And we just have to make sure that our purpose is going in in the right direction too. I heard, and I never knew this, because when you think of passion, what do you think of, Chris?
SPEAKER_03Passion? Well, I mean you think of love, you know.
SPEAKER_01Right, right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. But things that you love, enjoy, you know, things along that line.
SPEAKER_01So it's more of an extreme feeling. Yeah. Do you think of it as positive or negative?
SPEAKER_03Well, for sure it's positive. Positive. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and I I do as well. I was looking up about the word passion because we throw it into hundreds of context. Just like you were just saying, whether you're passionate about your work, your hobbies, you can be passionate about food, what you like to eat, sports, if you like sports, technology, anything. But the word passion always seems to generate an emotion because if someone said, Oh, I'm really passionate about this, right? It's like exciting, isn't it? It gets your adrenaline going. And also the emotion inside your heart. Like you said, the first thing you think of is love and and positive things about it. But what was interesting that the root of the word is from the Latin root to suffer, just the opposite of what we think. Right. And um, I guess the definition forces that question, what have you set your heart upon that so intense that you're willing to sacrifice for it? Because if it means to suffer, how do you take that to a different level?
SPEAKER_03Well, I guess it would be a form of love if I if I'm gonna suffer in a way that I'm gonna put other things to the side so I can focus intently on this. So that that's what comes to my mind.
SPEAKER_01That's true. And and also if you think about certain passions, they can change. I mean, sometimes it can change at a whim, you know. You just are thinking about multiple passions. And if you have so many passions, it kind of tears you in different directions. Right. Like if you're trying to do everything to the nth degree, it's virtually impossible as a human being. So I thought that was kind of a good way to say what what's your heart set upon today? What is really important to you at this moment? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_03I can recall a time that I was speaking to some high school students and they had asked one of the students asked me, how do I find my passion or purpose? And at that time I know I stuttered, you know, I wish I would have thought about it beforehand, I should have, because I I think it's more found over time, you know. Like you said, I I do this, and sometimes it's you find it by d knowing what you don't want to do. You know, I've had jobs that I really didn't like, and I thought I don't want to make a career out of this. So uh but then there's other jobs, it's like I really like this aspect of this work, you know, like like being an entrepreneur, uh responsibility's on me, that type of thing.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03So I think purpose and passion is more found than it is ingrained in us. Now, I had told you a story about I knew a missionary in our church and he claimed that when he was ten years old he knew he wanted to be a missionary. Yes. And that's that's odd, I think, that you know, that a person knows that at that young age. But then again, I've heard of a someone that lost their dad a heart attack and then they became a heart surgeon, you know. So I understand how that can happen. Right. But I think it's rare because I think many of us or most of us probably find our passion or purpose as as we age. And and some of us might take 30, 40, 50 years before we get there. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Right. And and sometimes like the story of the young boy that said he wanted to be a pastor or a missionary and he did that. I'm almost envious. And you think, oh my gosh, I never had that aha moment that you could follow. And not envious in a bad way. It just amazes me. And you think, in most of those situations, you think, did the Lord intervene and take that young man to a place where he can serve him? It's really I I just think it takes a lot of commitment to stay.
SPEAKER_03But it makes you wonder too, how many times maybe has God reached out to us and we haven't been listening.
SPEAKER_01Right. Right.
SPEAKER_03So but I if if it's his if it's his vision or his uh purpose for our life, I think he'll bring us around full circle, you know, to other experiences.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell Well, you think about Jesus Himself, you know, the Lord He set His heart upon saving us and He died for us. So you talk about a a purpose. He certainly had a purpose that we gained for because he was so passionate about us that he did do an everything and anything to to help us. And I think as believers we need to keep that passion and love for Jesus in our our lives as well. I mean it's kind of like the first commandment love him with all your heart, soul, right, and strength. And that's kind of true. What is that, Mark 12? Mark something. Yeah, I think Mark twelve.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You put me on the spot.
SPEAKER_01That I know, I'm not sure. But it but it is. That's probably one of the first rocks we need to think about and a purpose. Tell me about your path for becoming a professional. Was your path one of those aha ones or did it just evolve?
SPEAKER_03You know, my dad worked in a factory and I didn't really understand what he did. But I think for most of us, it's like um you get through school when are you going to college or not? Right. And if you're if you're if even if you're going to college, I've I've read where people that get their degree within five years, 70% of them aren't aren't doing work related to that degree. I believe so there's a case of how passions change or purpose. Um but for those of us that don't go to on to college, uh, you know, you go to a place that's um hiring. And my first job was at a lumber company where I ordered supplies and delivered things and couldn't see making a career out of it. And actually it was your dad that gave me an opportunity through through the golf course. Uh and I thought, wow, what a great opportunity. You know, I I really enjoy golf. Used to say I love golf, but I learned later that love's reserved for God and your family. So I enjoy golf. And I thought, what better way to uh have a job? And you know, 16-hour days didn't seem bad because I was enjoying what I was doing. But, you know, then later I I got into a factory myself and I was fortunate that they they allowed me to express myself in ways that I was kind of like an entrepreneur and but I had the security of the weekly paycheck. So, you know, I I've been really blessed in my work career that I've had jobs I've enjoyed and didn't really ever dread going to work like I know a lot of people do.
SPEAKER_01Right. I loved I know I was the same way I loved I loved my job, and I was so fortunate. I started out for not a very good reason. History was always easy because when you're in school, it's just memorizing, which isn't really what history's about. So I thought, oh, I think I'm pretty good at this. Well, that's just because I was memorizing things and I wasn't really processing or taking it to a higher level of thinking, you know, on uh Bloom's taxonomy. I was still at the early stages. But when I went to college at Wittenberg, I remember I was closed out of a history class, probably only maybe my second or third semester of college. And I think we were on quarters, I take that back. But I was in, I got into a psychology class, child psychology class instead because it fit into my schedule. And it was really good because at Wittenberg, they would put you in the schools, you would actually observe students and teachers. And I think that's very helpful. And I will never forget it was a the first day I went in and spring it was in Springfield schools, and I'm sorry, they were in need, they were in great need of repair. And and then I just can remember in this special ed class, this little girl who really couldn't even talk or communicate, she came over to me and on that hard tile floor, she stood on her head with her head down there and did a headstand because that's all she could do to get attention, I think. And she wanted to show me what she was proud of. And I just thought, these children, it just touched my heart. And at that point, I switched over to special education and I've loved it. Yeah, I was so blessed, and just like you, every day I enjoyed my job. Sometimes I'd go home tired thinking, why am I doing this? But 60 hours a week was nothing when you love your job. Yep. We're so blessed that that happened.
SPEAKER_03You had a story about a guy from studying Mars.
SPEAKER_01Oh, oh, on that vision. Yes, yes, yes. I yes. I had a couple stories today, but that yes, I will. That was fascinating.
SPEAKER_03I never heard that one. I thought I heard them all, but I hadn't heard that one.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell I had not either until I I read it. But um it goes back to a distinguished astronomer, and this is way back to the 19th century, and his name was Sir Percival Lowell, L-O-W-E-L-L. And he was known for his expertise. He studied the red planet, Mars. And um, people just, you know, he was on a pedestal because he was such a specialist in this. And he had theorized that Mars featured water canals and channels. And in 1877, an Italian colleague of his saw lines crisscrossing the planet. So Lowell claimed that proved his theory because this astronomer actually saw the canals and the water channels. So Lowell was so eminent at that time, way back in the 19th century, that no one even questioned whether his conclusion was correct or not. But nowadays, NASA scientists, of course, have all these very refined ways of looking at Mars better than Lowell ever hoped to see Mars. And their sophisticated probes mapped the planet closely, and they have never found a single water canal. So that really kind of changed what was always perceived before that. So also, while NASA scientists have improved, ophthalmologists have also improved how they can look at the human eye. And in their advanced knowledge of the human eye, and that would be since 1900, they have found that what Lowell thought he was studying Mars when he was looking at Mars, he was actually mapping the blood vessels in his own eyeballs. And so nowadays they've named that eye disease as Lowell's syndrome. But you know, it's just how you perceive things. You're right.
SPEAKER_03Trevor Burrus, Jr.: You know I've looked at either a microscope or telescope before, and I've seen exactly what they're talking about, where you're seeing a reflection of your own eyeball. Uh-huh. And so when you told me that story, it was fascinating. I never heard it, but it's it's how we can feel 100% sure we we think we know something, we see something, and couldn't be further from the truth.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah. How you how you perceive it. That's right. And and I think that kind of vision, whether narrow or far vision, it it in in our minds affects us in a lot of of different ways. And we equate vision with the things nearest to us and the demands greatest to us and the stresses that are on us right now personally, and then we forget the big picture. Sometimes we get so focused on, oh, this is it, this is the answer. And it's not really really the answer. So we need good eyes, we need good heart, we need good mind just to see everything. Right, right. To be able to do that. A good and a good pair of spiritual eyes too to kind of keep things where they should and be realistic about it.
SPEAKER_03You had another story, I think, you wanted to share with us. Oh, I did. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I I think this is a very cute story. This is a make-believe story, I'm sure. It's a make-believe story, but it's a good one when you think about your mission in life. And it's a story about a young man, we'll call him Juan, and he was he was a Mexican and he was, let's say, 13 years old. And every day he would cross the border from Mexico to the United States, and he had a gleaming new sparkly bike, and he would cross the Mexican U.S. border with a sandbag straddled across that center bar. And the crossing guards.
SPEAKER_03Custom agents.
SPEAKER_01Yes, they would kind of question, like, why is this young boy bringing this bicycle with this the sandbag across? And they were concerned about the sandbag. What what's he what's he smuggling, allegedly smuggling across the border? So they would spot check him every day, and every day it was full of sand, the bag. And then the next day, same thing would happen. And this went on repeatedly until finally they were frustrated, the agents were frustrated. And and the one agent said, Juan, I'm only going to question you this once, this one time, and I'll never stop you again from entering, you know, the United States. But I want to know what are you smuggling? You know, what are you bringing in? Because every time we check you, it's just and the 13-year-old boy looked at him and he said, New bicycles. And it's just like, wow.
SPEAKER_03How obvious, huh?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. We we miss that too. Sometimes we're concerned about something and we miss the obvious. Right. I thought that was that is a good story. I never heard it. And like I said, it's I'm sure it's kind of just a legend, but it's a good story.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. How things right under our nose can can escape us. We notice other things that are trivial, but but leave out the obvious. One thing that I had that I wanted to share was uh talking about godly mission, purpose, and vision. Okay. Godly mission, purpose, and vision focus on glorifying God, making decisions. Disciples and serving others through faith. So a couple examples would be to love God, love people, and make disciples, to glorify God by using my gifts to serve others and leading people to experience a God first life. Godly mission examples would be to make disciples of Jesus for the transformation of the world, to help people find and follow Jesus. And then a godly vision would be like making gospel-centered disciples among all people for the glory of God. And I like this one, we exist to make heaven more crowded.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. Oh, that's good.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. Because I think in our everyday lives, we we just go through the routine pretty much. You know, you set the alarm, you wake up, maybe you have coffee or whatever, take a few moments and then you're off to work. Afterwards you might work out or do something for yourself. I don't know. And then you come home and you have a family, and then perhaps you catch a little TV at the end of the day and go to sleep, start all over again. Reset. And so life is so full that it you have to intentionally find God. You have to intentionally put Him into your life. And and I think probably all of us have experienced that. And and you just ask that honest question about how do you change? Because you can't ignore your family, you can't ignore your job. All those are such critical points of living. But whether it kind of goes back to that story. Whether you're a Christian or a non-Christian, you're delivering sandbags. You have to keep doing kind of the same thing. But then you also have to ask, what is our purpose? You know, why do we exist? And um, I think the Bible leads you to the answer, why we do do exist and your mission. And that leads me to another story because your mission in life, whether it's personal, family, work life, they hang on that center bar, just like the center bar of the bicycle. And so now this is true. The composer Johannes Sebastian Bach, you've heard of him probably, and he was a brilliant composer, like we all know. I did not know. He initialized each of his compositions with the initials S period, D period, G, period. And he dedicated all these incredible works, you know, that have been around forever and ever to the glory of God because the SDG stands for the Latin words solid deo gloria. And I did not know that. And so I thought, can we actually put the footer SDG on all we do? I mean, can we turn the glory of God into the mission of our lives? But I thought that was a uh it makes me put Bach at even a higher level.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, I've never been that musically uh inclined or interested. But uh yeah, I'm that's definitely a name we've heard of. So makes you wonder uh the people that have been inspired by God, you know, to do their music. I mean, because we get so much from the music side with the hymns and the the, you know, we're at our Christian radio station, you know, how many people are moved by that.
SPEAKER_01So Absolutely. And that kind of comes full circle to what you were saying about how do you find your purpose in life. Right. And how like the friend that you talked to knew that he wanted to be a minister or to help others at the age of eight or nine? Yeah, ten. Right. And it does, it just comes full circle. I guess the natural question that arises when you think about purposes is when do you take all of these purposes and turn them into your passion of life? When does it really become a purpose become a passion? And how do you avoid spiritual dysfunction by focusing on things that really aren't as important? And how do we ground ourselves and stabilize and kind of nurture the passions that are and the purposes that are important in life?
SPEAKER_03You know, isn't the word sanctification where we're becoming more like God each day? I think that's the right word. But at any rate, I I recall my own journey. I I didn't really grow up in church. We were kind of like the Easter Christmas Christians, and uh I would go with some I would go with uh some friends periodically. But when my wife and I decided to be married, we thought we don't want to be hypocrites, so we'll start going to church. And she went all the time, and I went anytime it wasn't raining or in the winter, because I was golfing. Golfing. And uh at some point I remember hearing a sermon that God doesn't want me to be a 20-week Christian. He wants a 52-week. And at that time I just decide I can play golf other days of the week, and I've been a 52-week guy ever since. So I think it's that that act of, if I'm saying it right, sanctification that you we grow more like Christ by what we allow into our minds and into our heart, you know, the what we read, what we listen to, the people we're around, and that's gonna make us better each and every day, and make us have that opportunity to witness to others.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell So actually the professor was right by putting into your jar um the golf balls first. At least that's what you used to think.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was very important to me as a teenager.
SPEAKER_01But uh next week, I know as we're kind of moving along and we've talked a little bit well, quite a bit today about purpose, mission, vision. Right. And I think again, you started talking about how they don't necessarily come in that order. Yeah. You know, we address them in that order, but you, how you put the rocks in can change.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_01And how you kind of put your life into order can can change. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It depends on the prioritize the things that are important, you know.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. And and to always remember that the Lord will lead us if we allow him and we're open to hear and exactly.
SPEAKER_03Yep. So I think that's going to conclude today's episode. Next month, we're leaning towards mattering versus achievement. So Debbie's done some research there, and I'll continue to do some myself, and we'll see how we can kind of tie that all together.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Thanks for listening.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to Discovering Our Very Best Podcast. Please remember to like, subscribe, and share this podcast with friends. Remember, when there is hope in the future, there is power in the present.