Unleashing Your Full Potential: Discovering Your True Purpose In Life

TRANSCRIPT

My name is Megan Greenway is my official name, but everyone knows me as Megs. And a little bit about myself. I've been a primary school teacher for 22 years and still doing that now. Um, I also get that awesome opportunity to work here for part of our church family. Uh, I oversee all of the kids ministry and the youth ministry.

I also volunteer here and run a music program for families during the week. So I'm a very busy lady. But one thing that I was doing when I was thinking about all the things that God has blessed me with in my life is the fact that all of these different parts of my life all boil down to this deep down, you know, passion that I really have to help people find out their true value.

That's what everything I do in every part of my jobs. Everything that I've been called to do is to just try and bring that heart out, that God loves people, that there is value in people, and there is not one part of my life where that isn't happening, and I love the fact that I get to do that. So today, I thought it was only fitting, as we come ready for the first time for our At The Movies of this year, we're going to be looking at a movie which came out just last year, and it's called, The Wild Robot.

Now, for me, the reason, like, The Wild Robot, I've got a picture actually here. Oh, that was it? Yeah, it's working. Oh, isn't she beautiful? The Wild Robot. This came about for me. My son at school was actually reading the book. So this is from a book by Peter Brown. And they were reading it at school when they were unpacking The Wild Robot.

And he was coming home just so passionate about this story. And it just so happened the movie was coming out in the September. So I was like, great, great, great. Fabulous. I'm an educator, right? This is fantastic. We will go and see the movie and take all this knowledge you've got from the book and put it together.

And I went and watched this movie, not really knowing anything about it. And I'm in there like crying over this animated film because there is so much beauty in it. And that's why I was like, Oh, I would love to do the wild robot for, for you guys for this time round. So basically it's the story of this particular robot.

What is happening is there's an organization. And they're creating these devices, they're called ROSMs. And so this one is ROSM Unit 7134, to be exact. And ROSM Unit 7134, she's part of the shipment of new robots that are being sent out across the world in a new stage of AI. They bring them into every home so that everybody has a service robot, right?

I'm wondering if that will happen in our lifetime. But on the way, there's this massive storm that occurs, and all of these robots get displaced. They all either become shipwrecked shipwrecked, destroyed, or they end up sinking, and Roz is one of these particular robots who gets shipwrecked on a island.

And I'm not going to tell you anything more because we're going to check out a clip and introduce you to Roz. Here we go. Hello, bonjour! Guten Tag! Pudiambo! Hola! Congratulations on your purchase of a Universal Dynamics robot. I am Rosam 7134. A Rosam always completes its task. Just ask.

Just ask!

Processing.

Do you

need assistance?

RASMs are programmed for instant physical mimicry, so as to

Aggression detected. My communication package includes strategies for conflict resolution. Your dialect is not in my databanks. Tell your people not to worry. RASM7134 will sort out this language barrier in no time.

But she's been programmed to see things a certain way and now she's in a place and what she's looking at just doesn't really add up. And I must admit, for myself, as I'm getting older, I sometimes get into situations in my life where I'm like, this doesn't really add up. Um, It's particularly things like, why is my back hurting all of a sudden?

Why are my knees sore? As I start to get a little bit older. And the things that I've experienced before, they're starting to change. Uh, definitely things like, oh gosh, I haven't experienced this parenting challenge before. I think I'm in uncharted territory. I don't know what's going on. SOS, SOS. And I think all of us have had times where we get in this position of, things just don't seem right.

I thought I knew what was happening in my life, but what's going on? And so at the start of every new year, I find myself reflecting, right? I think about, well, what was I successful with? Uh, what did I need to change maybe for this next year? What have I learned? What do I want to aspire to next? The new year aspirations, I like to call them, as opposed to resolutions.

But really what I'm trying to do when I do that is I'm just trying to strive to be a better version of myself. I don't want to stay the same from what I was from last year. I want to try, and I say try because you know, aspirations don't always come to fruition, but I want to try and be better than I was.

But I'd go as far to say that there is a lot of people in the world where that whole process of trying to get better at being ourselves, we just feel lost. We don't know. What is it that is next? And we take this stock take on our lives, and we ask things like, is this really all that I'm made for? The things that I did of last year, is that it?

Have I reached the pinnacle already? The grand age of 23? Or, is there something greater waiting for me? There's just like this little bit of discontent there. Surely this isn't everything. And then as we continue on, Roz is completely perplexed. Where is she? She's been dumped into the middle of a place she doesn't understand.

She's been thrust into a world that she doesn't know and she's frantically trying to make sense of it all and there are huge correlations here to humans. Huge correlations. Because from the very first moment when you are thought of, And you're physically created. And David wrote it so beautifully in the Psalms, King David.

He said, you were knit in your mother's womb, which I love that whole thing. And this thing is very intricate. It's woven together so beautifully. No holes, unless I'm knitting, there's many holes, but The good knitter, his good knitter. So you knit together in your mother's room and then God mixes in like all the personality stuff, a bit of this and some physical traits, a sense of humor or lack thereof, a little bit like the Swedish chef.

And then life begins and there you are, the secret herbs and spices that create you and who you are. And so you begin to grow and form. And then God also programs in you a piece of heaven. Heaven is placed within you. And then after a bit of percolating, hey, you are then deposited in the world and from then, that very moment, you then have to learn to process the things of this world.

And that is very different, depending, like, I've given birth twice. My first lovely daughter here, when she was born, she was like, absolute silence, just smiling. My son, AHHHHH! As soon as he was out he was screaming. Very much like the personalities now. But the problem is, that the world actually has a different operating system.

to that which was deposited in you when you were first being created. And so we now are deposited into a new world and we're struggling to find the way in which these two sets of programming work and they're actually at war with each other. And so from the day one, day one of your life, all of your senses are working towards making sense of the world around you, a broken world, a very broken world.

Extremely. And then what ends up happening is that programming of heaven, it was still there, but it begins to get drowned out. And in some cases, it's completely lost, for some people, by the faulty programming of the world. Completely lost. And it's in these experiences where we're trying to make sense of things where these big questions of life come, and all of us have them.

Who am I? When we lose that deposit from heaven, we, we start losing the knowledge of who we actually are. Who am I? What can I do? And what am I actually meant to be? Who has those questions in their life? They come around in circles. And I would love to say that all of us then have an equal playing field in being able to find out the answers to those questions, but we actually don't.

Because some people. I would like to say they're very fortunate ones. They have people in their life from the very beginning that help them draw out the gifts and the talents. They have people that instantly point them back, you're valuable, God made you, God loves you. Did you know you're here for a reason?

I'm one of those very fortunate people. I grew up in a family where my dad and mum were saying that to me all the time. Jesus was there for me. The programming of heaven was reminded for me, but then the majority of people I would say are in situations where the world standards and the world's programming is actually the loudest voice in their life from, from when they're youngest.

And so that makes it even more confusing when you're getting to these big questions of who am I and what can I do and what am I meant to do? Because they don't realize there's a creator that actually made you. exactly how you're meant to be. And you're going to try and change yourself over time because the world tells you to, but you're not meant to.

You're meant to find out who you are, but we don't know that. Because the brokenness of the world's programming actually smothers the true identity. And I've seen that in a lot of my friends, to be honest, I have lots of friends that are struggling with these big questions and they're in their forties and they're saying, I just don't know what's next for me.

And I'm like, well, I've. Spent so much time communicating with you about other options, but it has to be your choice. You see, the materials are the same. But the experiences are different. And so it's hard. It's hard for a lot of people. And so what ends up happening as we're going back into the movie now, she doesn't take long, Roz, to accept that she is out of place.

And all the things that she was trained to do, to help others is actually causing devastation amongst the animal kingdom. And so she's thinking to herself, well, this is what I'm designed to do. I'm designed to serve. Are you my customer? Are you my customer? Why am I destroying your homes? I'm so sorry.

They're running away from her. And she is thinking I'm a failure. I am broken. I'm different. I love this part of the movie here. She knuckles down and she realizes, well, To truly be one to serve and help those around me, what am I needing to discover? And she goes into lockdown mode. But maybe you've been in this place before, where you just don't feel like you fit in.

Or maybe you're a little bit in the wilderness. Those times where the moment you're actually in, you don't feel like you're even in that moment. Even though everything's happening around you, you're sitting in it and everything's zzzzzz and you're unsure of what is going on. And you're trying to discover, what is the purpose of why I'm in this?

Who am I? Why am I being pulled into this? And you get some really unhelpful thoughts at that time. And perhaps you're thinking along these lines, you're actually being defined by your past experiences or what others expect of you. And that's driving everything. Maybe you're just unsure if we're making a difference in life.

Like, what's the point of being here if I'm making no difference at all? What is the point? Or you're wondering if you actually truly belong. So Raj, she ventures back out into the wild after this lockdown period and she's got all this new knowledge and she's heading out there but, you know, it still just doesn't fit.

She knows she just doesn't still quite belong in this world, but as she continues to find her place, she stumbles across a very unique gift. And we're going to have a little bit of a look at that now.

Was this task accomplished to your satisfaction? On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is most satisfied and 1 is least, how would you rate my performance? I will register that as a 10. Oh, okay. Hello. Uh, this gosling is yours. Negative. That gosling stalks me, emits noise, and makes simple tasks more complicated or impossible.

Yeah, they do that. Goslings in print on the first thing they see which would be you Congratulations as far as he's concerned. You're his mother now. I do not have the programming to be a mother. No one does We just make it up without an assigned task. My next priority is to return to factory. Taking care of him.

Here's your task now. Task acquired. Return mode delayed. A Razam always completes its task. You're lucky. You just have one.

I put a couple of clips there together, but as you can see, just like that, Rossum7134 becomes a mother! And she names the goose child, Bright Bill. Because she's told your child needs a name and she calls it zero zero zero one. They're like no So she begins to experience this new love It's not she it wasn't programmed into her to love something But she's experiences this new love and it's brand new to her and a relationship Then starts to build and it pulls out this greater purpose in her One that ends up being rooted in love You and connection and service.

And everything that Roz thought that she knew about herself and her purpose, then begins to change bit by bit. Cause she was understanding that her faulty programming doesn't define her potential. When she was placed into that situation, it didn't compute. And she was like, Oh, I'm broken. The faulty programming didn't actually define her potential.

And it's easy to feel like that your limitations and your circumstances are actually the final word on who you are and what you can do, and even maybe what you're supposed to be. But you know what your faulty program doesn't define your potential. And when I'm talking about faulty programming, I'm talking about those things of the world.

They come in and they take over what was the initial heaven deposit, but there's this programming that comes and it tells us things that are not actually accurate. Faulty programming, the experiences of your life. That doesn't define your potential. The missed opportunities, the perceived failures of your life, the traumas of your past, maybe the traumas of your present, that doesn't define your potential.

The moments of hurt and embarrassment, your faulty programming doesn't define your potential because your creator does. Your creator defines. And this story here, it mirrors what we can see in scripture. Now, way back, I'm going to have a look into some of the scriptures. Now we're going to look back into the older part of the Bible, the old covenant in Jeremiah and Jeremiah had the opportunity to be able to speak on God's behalf to people of the time.

And Jeremiah, and this is a very, very famous quote that gets pulled out and applied in lots of different places. But Jeremiah was speaking these particular words we're going to read to a Jewish group of people who had been living under the domination of the Egyptians and the Babylonian empires and it was not good.

It was not a nice place to be for them. And Jeremiah comes in and in Jeremiah 29 11 We read this scripture and some of you may know it says, For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. And that's put in a lot of graduation things, right?

But you know what? They were in a lot of pain when this was being said to them. It wasn't a fun time at all. It would be more than 70 years later before these people would get any any help in their situation. But God was there to say, you know what? I'm going to teach you how to prosper in the midst of this hardship.

I know the plans I'm going to teach you, even though the programming of the world that you're in right now is so undesirable, the potential that I have for you to still live with me is there. Heaven's operating system is available to you. And I'm going to teach you how to do that. And this is how in verse 12, he says, well, then you'll call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I love the fact that he says, you'll call on me and come and pray to me and I'll listen to you. He doesn't say, I'll listen to you and then I'll give you three wishes. I'm going to grant all of them instantly. It doesn't actually say that.

It says, I'm going to listen and if you seek me, you'll find me because I'm going to come and that is how you're going to get through this hard time because I will be there to walk with you. And so when you think you are too far gone. When you think you can't do it, when you think you are too broken to be used, when you feel like I am too unsuccessful to ever achieve anything in life because look what's already happened to me.

Well, this is when God actually steps in and he says, you know what, it's when you're in your weakest moments, I get to be strong for you. I get to step in and I get to do the things that you can't do on your own and you know you can't do it on your own, but that doesn't mean you don't have the potential when you get to do it with me.

In Proverbs 19, 21, King Solomon, he wrote this, Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it's the Lord's purpose. that prevails. And like Ros, we might start off with an idea of who we were meant to be and what I was meant to have for my life by this time. And, but God's purpose for your life often goes far beyond what you imagined.

And it also could be different than what you imagined because your life takes twists and turns. And that's because you're in a broken world, all those things that happen in your life. So when you get to connect with him, you begin to discover more. And then this, I'm going to finish the last little, um, scripture part today from Luke 19.

10. It said, For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. So if you're one of those people and you're like, I don't know from this point on what I'm meant to do with my life. Jesus came to save the lost. He came to be able to come and help you while you're in that period. Thank you. And that's God's love for us, because God's love transforms us in ways that we can't always predict.

And maybe you feel stuck in your faulty programming. You may not necessarily know, right now, there might be some of you here, and you maybe don't necessarily know how much of this God stuff you know about yet or believe about, okay? And so for you, your faulty programming might be that you're You know that you're not where you feel like you should be in life but you just don't know what to do about it.

And the fact that you're even listening to this today shows that you're exploring. And so I would encourage you to keep exploring a relationship with God because the next steps are there for you. What do you think that you're going to be drawn here today for? So I would encourage you still on that journey.

And then for some of you, your faulty programming might look a little different at the moment because you know, you believe that God has plans for you, but you're not progressing. And you don't know why. You kind of feel a little stuck. And maybe you're thinking to yourself, well, you know, I have been journeying with God for a while and this is just who I am.

There's not a lot, like some things have changed, but this is obviously where I stop. I've been finished. I'm like, this is it. I can't change. I'm not actually capable of any more than I'm already done. I've done everything. God can't use somebody like me because look at all the stuff that's happened in my life.

I can't be used. But here's the truth, when you start to think about like things like that, you're getting yourself confused because God sees past all of that confusion of your life and he sees the initial programming, he knows what he put into you at the beginning. And so there's a good chance that if you are in those stuck points and you're thinking, well this is it, I can't do anymore, I can't be anymore than I already am, there's a good chance that you're actually holding on to some really deep roots of belief about yourself.

that weren't actually in your initial programming. You've been fooled. You've been fooled into thinking that you are less important than you actually are. And God's love, he redefines your potential because he came to seek and he came to save the lost. And when you begin to seek him, he doesn't just change what you do, But he transforms who you are, reminding you of who he created you to be in the first place.

Because your faulty programming from this world doesn't define your potential. And so Roz begins to get transformed by this love for Bright Bill and the other forest animals and that love leads her to a new sense of purpose. We're going to have a quick little look at just one example of this now.

Here.

Can you find more?

We're gonna be okay.

What are you doing here? Bummer. This one's dead. That is not funny. Paddler! I'm f f f

fine!

Don't give up.

You don't look so good. It is everyone accounting for. Maybe one more.

What's he doing here? Oh great, this'll help. Get out of here! I worked hard on this! Think. What is happening? You put a bunch of predators and their food supply in one room. That's my lunch! Think. What? Help them. Quiet!

The jerk wants to speak. Most of you hate me and I hate most of you. Everyone in here hates someone else. It's true. But here we are. And here's the deal. First one that walks out that door is dead. And if we can't keep it together in here, everyone's dead. We all got one chance to see next spring. Because of her.

The thing. The monster. Well, her name is Roz. And while you all ran from her, and stole from her, and made fun of her, All she's been trying to do is raise her kid, the little one that no one gave a chance. Including me. She's the one who got you out of the storm, built this place, and despite my suggestion that she let you all freeze, she risked everything to bring you here.

So Roz had this job to raise her child, And I have hardly shown you any of the movie, because I don't want to ruin it for you, because I want you to go and watch it. But Bright Bill becomes really big. He's a big goose, but he was actually the runt of his litter. And so they're all making fun of Bright Bill throughout the whole movie, saying, you can't do that.

You're the runt. He wouldn't be able to ever do that. And Ros believes in him and says, you know what? We can do it. Let's do it together. And so this is now the point where all the animals are together and think together. He does his big, you know, display of saying, you guys need to think about how the way you judge people really is what he was saying.

And it's a really lovely moment in the movie, but the reality is that she had love that changed her. She had love that changed her. And for us, God's love changes us. But not just for our own benefit, which there is 100 percent our own benefit of it. It's so we can impact others. It's not just about us. We then get to experience God's love and go and help other people.

Because there are people in the world right now who are desperately waiting for you to figure out who you are. They're waiting for you to figure out whose you are, because they're not going to hear about him unless you do. And the only light in the darkness of their world might be you turning up with God's presence in you.

That's it. They're not going to see it anywhere else. They have faulty programming left, right and centre in their world. And then you pop in. What's different about that? Oh, tell me a little bit more about you. And that is how God actually reaches people in this world and pulls them out of the darkness.

It's through us. So even though our faulty programming, it doesn't define our potential, it definitely shapes it. If we're not aware of there is more for us that we can do and to become all that we were ever destined and designed to be. We need to let God reprogram our hearts and our minds. Because it was there at the beginning.

The programming was there but it got lost along the way. And there's a few ways that we can do this. And number one is to spend time in his word and in prayer. And I love A. W. Tozer, he's one, I love his writing, he was so blunt. But he was a, an amazing man of God, who wrote down some really hard hitting stuff to read.

I get challenged every time I read. But this is one of his quotes, and he said, The key to prayer is simply praying. That's the key. You come. and you talk with God. So when we spend time with God and we talk with God, He listens to us and He'll speak back to us in His way and spending time in His Word. And that's why so much of what we do here is around getting into the Word of God, the soap devotion.

Scripture, What do I observe from it? How do I apply it in my life? That is how you reprogram your heart and your mind. And then you pray to God, hearing for yourself, those things that God wants to build in your life. Because I would like to ask you, where else are you catching the truth of your creator from in the world?

I'm not seeing it in my every day. I'm not seeing it in the messages that I'm seeing in movies. I'm not seeing it in messages I'm hearing in music. I'm not getting it from anywhere else unless I go and seek it out and connect with Him. And He said in Jeremiah 12, you will call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you and then you'll seek me and you're going to find me.

That is how we do it. And then number two, we ask Him to reveal His purpose for your life. And you know, It's not going to be. The purpose for your life is you're meant to be a lawyer and you're going to Brisbane and you're going to be departed and that's, you know, it's not necessarily that specific. The purpose of your life, to love God completely and to love others.

Love God with all your heart. Love others. Getting to holiness and then servanthood. That is the purpose for our lives. Revealing each and every day what that's going to look like because it will look like a different thing every day. When you walk out the door today, how am I going to be able to completely show that I love you, God?

And how am I going to be able to love somebody else? What is that going to look like for today? I hand it over to you out the door. I go, let's see what the day brings. When you start to do that, you will see the reprogramming of your heart and mind happen. And I can tell you when I started to take that seriously, my life became exciting.

My life became meaningful, my life had purpose and all those things that I felt like defined me for who I was and that I would allow myself to get bogged down with started to disappear because I saw, you know, a God can use someone like me to do this. And so as this movie continues on, we begin to just see this sacrifice of Roz in so many different parts of her life and it was so much like what Jesus was.

He gave his life in teaching, in sharing, in being with people, in listening to those that others wouldn't listen to, in giving his life. And Roz shows us so much of that in this movie. Her potential and her purpose is found. And like I said, I cried. I cried in this movie and I was surprised. I'm not really a big crier, although as I'm getting older, I do cry a little more, I must say, in movies.

But I, Wept over an animated metal machine. I'm going to admit I did. And I want to not tell you too much more about the movie, but I want to play you a snippet of the trailer that hopefully encouraged you to watch this movie. So this is the last little video clip before we wrap up. Needs to swim and fly.

Swimming's easy. I can teach him the way my mom taught me. Swim!

He's a runt. His chances aren't super good. I will protect him.

He's gotta leave this island by fall. Right, Bill? It is more dangerous for him than for us. Anyone else, but he has a chance if where his wings end, his heart can pay the balance. You are not easy to find. You are defective. I feel fine. You should not. I don't feel anything at all. Mom? No!

Sometimes, to survive, we must become more than we were programmed to be. I will protect all of you. You are ordered to return home. I am already home. And I am a wild robot.

I love that little part in there where she, he says, he has a chance of where his wings and his heart can pay the bill. Cause my wings are gonna fail, but that which I have in my heart can do amazing things within me. when I allow it to take flight in my life. And so my heart continues to break and this is why I'm so passionate about bringing messages like this.

It continues to break for people that I see that are struggling in the world and they're struggling with a sense of not being worthy, not being useful, not having a purpose, not being enough because that's the programming of the world. It's a constant discontent and a constant unease. That's what it is.

There is no peace in that and it's designed to keep people small. But that, that God deposited in you when you were first knit together. You are valued. You are needed. You are useful. With you by my, with me by your side, you are enough. And you can do anything that I tell you you can do because I'm gonna be there to help you.

These things are still there. They're in there. They just might be buried deeper for some people but they're still in there and they need to be reignited, to be pointed back to Jesus and you know, I love the fact that this is what Jesus would say. He would say, look, you went off track there for a while but the way back has returned.

The way back. Jesus is the way. You went off track there for a little bit. The way back's returned. It's okay. We can help you. We can With you and me together, we can take on the world. Call on me. Come and pray with me. I'm going to listen to you. Come and seek me. You're going to find me. We can do this together.

And that is what Jesus does for us. Because your faulty programming from this world does not define your potential. And that is what I'm, I'm absolutely passionate about. Reminding people. And that might be being called out of your lack of belief in yourself and having to invite yourself to start being reprogrammed.

It can be scary at times, changing is hard when you have to change yourself and it's not comfortable at times, but it's going to be worth it. But you get to choose what you want to do to move forward. You can take or leave anything that I've said today and I I will not be sad about it because you get free choice in life.

But I will rejoice if I had even just one person here today that goes, you know what? I am worth it. I am valuable. I am able to be used. I'm not a worthless human. Even just one person today. I will be so happy with that. Because God is waiting to welcome you back. And you get to decide what programming for your life you want to take charge.

And I'm hoping that you choose, I'm hoping that you choose to have the cheerleader that God is for you. He's going to cheer you on. He's going to guide you. He's going to train you and take you to where you need to go next. You don't have to worry about it. Just seek his face. I'm going to ask the team to come back now as we finish up.

It just means taking a leap. And I do encourage you, try and find the wild robot. Watch it for yourself. It's funny. It's moving. And after today's message, I hope it reminds you of some really important things for yourself. And just as we're finishing up, I'm going to get the band to play for us one song for reflection as we finish today.

And it's called God, I look to you. And the second line in the song says, God, I look to you. I won't be overwhelmed because really it can be overwhelming. I won't be overwhelmed. You can give me vision. You can give me wisdom. And that's what the song's about. But a few things for you to reflect on today. Is there something in your heart or your mind that you feel has been placed there, but you've been afraid to pursue it?

Is there something there? You've been afraid to pursue it. What is God saying to you today? Or has your faulty programming stopped you from stepping into what you've actually been drawn towards. Now is a chance for us to think, how am I going to partner with God? Is it just going to be that I'm just going to find out more about him?

Because I don't really know. Is it going to be, I feel like God's calling me to something new and I don't want to do it, but. I know He wants me to do it and I'm going to get Him to lead me and guide me. I don't know what your story is, but God does and I love that. And so I'm just going to pray and I'm going to step off here.

We're going to worship God together and I want you to just have some time, reflect on this for yourself from the Holy Spirit. Father, we just thank you that even through a cartoon with a mechanical robot that you can remind us of some of the most important parts of who we are and that you love us and that we are valued.

And that you have created us in such unique ways. And so for anyone who is part of listening to these words today that I believe are inspired by your Holy Spirit, I just pray right now that Holy Spirit just ignite something in them. Help them to seek the answers to the questions they have. And Father, we just thank you that we can walk with you through all things in our life.

Amen.