Having worked all day as so many of us do year in and year out, I was reminded of why....Taxes!! Just kidding. I am always glad as grim as it may sound for this time of year because it means that I am able to work and want to work. My father, who was helping me at his home right after the Katrina disaster, put it into perspective once more. I was using a chainsaw to cut up the trees that had fallen around their home. There was dad in his eighty's and with all the complications from Parkinsons to stroke and congestive heart failure picking up the logs and limbs and putting them in a brush pile to be burned. As we stopped to get a drink that mom had brought to us, my father said "I enjoy hard work, it makes me feel good and gives me a sense of purpose every day that God has granted to me." Dad worked one job all of his life. dedicated to it's purpose. To provide for his family, friends, even strangers and his God. He is gone now and I miss him ever so, and he would not come back for anything. What caught my simple thinking was just part of that phrase "Sense of purpose ...That God has granted". When God gave us this wonderful gift of the Holy Ghost, Our sense of purpose Should have changed. Who are we to try to change it back. Every service should be solely purposed to equip us for hard work in the kingdom of God, through Praise and worship, giving and Ministering to those in the sanctuary walls and even more inportantly those outside our walls. O. K., It's like going to the gym and just sitting around talking and not getting into the workout and expecting results of physical change and strenght. I look forward at every service, to exercise my right to give it all I have. Creating a sense of purpose that will equip me for the more excellent rewards and challenges on this earth...Seeing souls continually added to the church daily. It ain't money...we will have it and spend it and want more...same for cars and clothing and .... It's still about what God has divined in us to do when he granted us pardon. Let's all come together every service and give it all we have and Watch God grant our petitions. My God is still a rewarder of those that (still)dilligently seek him.