This is your hour. What will you do with it?

Zig Ziglar’s favourite expression is “People are designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with seeds of greatness.” I think Zig Ziglar is meaning that as we go about transitioning from one season in our life to another, we do not have to stop at success. We can move on to a higher level of existence, a place called significance.

One of the tragedies of life is that we settle for success and this becomes the breeding ground for mediocrity. We condition ourselves to accept that some people are destined to be significant and some are not. We do this because it is easier to blame and excuse than it is to find purpose and drive.

An acceptance of average is the result of little or no purpose in life. Without purpose it is easy to focus on the wrong things, like trying to copy the actions, skills and practices of other successful people rather than evaluate the inner workings of our own life.

If truth be known, we are all probably haunted by the fear of living lives of insignificance. We may never publicly acknowledge it, but in the private world of our own imaginations we are afraid of not leaving our mark on this world. We fear living a life that is not noticed. Life without purpose feeds this fear. In fact, I have come to understand this brutal truth first hand... a life without purpose is characterised by restless nights and unfulfilled days.

Consider these people below:

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. Walt also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.

Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace, flunked out of college. He was described as “both unable and unwilling to learn”.

Michael Jordan, perhaps the greatest basketball player of all time, did not make his high school basketball team in his sophomore year.

Beethoven’s teacher called him hopeless as a composer.

Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade. He did not become Prime Minister until he was 62. His greatest contributions came when he was a senior citizen.

Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he finally succeeded.

It would be difficult to argue that these have not made a significant impact on our world. That is why we still use them as examples of what we can do when we find and focus on a life purpose.

So, let me ask you to consider this question for the day: if you knew that you would not fail, what great thing would you set out to do in the next five to ten years with your life?

I am inviting you to dream from a place beyond words. All great lives, the kind of lives that have changed our world, have begun with a dream. A life of significance is not about doing a lot of things, it is about accomplishing one thing so compelling that it can be called a life mission or life purpose.

Churchill wrote on May 10, 1940, “I was conscious of a profound sense of relief. At last I had the authority to give directions over a whole scene. I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but preparation for this hour and for this trial.”

Paul, the writer of Philippians in the New Testament talked about “this one thing I do”. The heart and voice of Martin Luther King cried for freedom and equality. What is the single cry of your heart and voice? What one thing will you do?