Gary

My name is Gary and this is my story. For as long as I can remember, God has given me the gift of teaching. I need to teach as much as I need to breath. I find opportunities to teach in just about every area of my life - professional and personal - including my Church. I have taught people in every age group over the years, from preschool to octogenarians, but for the past year, every Sunday morning, I have had the privilege of teaching young married couples at my church with the goal of passing on the wisdom I have gained in my 63 years of life, 33 years of marriage, and 40+ years of studying the Scriptures. I recently created a series of lessons for them on how to engage in faith discussions with people who have different beliefs. As part of that series, we are going through a wonderful example of a faith discussion from the YouTube channel Diary of a CEO where Steven Bartlett interviews Wes Huff, a Bible Historian, and together they explored many aspects of the Christian faith. In that interview they had a fascinating discussion on finding meaning and purpose. It was in the midst of listening to that interview, that I suddenly discovered a simple yet profound way of communicating what our true purpose and meaning is, here on earth. It is found in the very familiar and beautiful words of the Lord's Prayer. "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven..." Heaven is the perfect place; a place of absolute peace, complete fulfillment, and ultimate joy. A place where everything is the way it is supposed to be. Earth can never be like heaven, because living in this world means that we will inevitably experience failure and disappointments and heartache and pain. But..., what if..., what if we could bring a small part of heaven down to earth...? My purpose has never been to live a life good enough to get to heaven - my faith in Christ already guarantees that. Rather, my ultimate purpose is to live my life in such a way as to make earth a little bit more like heaven, in the time that I have remaining, and in every life that I touch. I can have no greater impact and serve no greater purpose than that. In that moment, I realized, that has always been my goal, and the driving force of my entire life. Only now I have found a simple way to articulate it, to myself and everyone else. So, I will continue searching the Scriptures and discover everything I can about Heaven, the Kingdom of God. And I will continue to strive to recreate that in my little corner of the world. The poet Rupert Brooke penned these words; "If I should die, think only this of me. There is a corner of a foreign field that is forever England." My heart resonates with those words, but it is not England that I want to recreate, it is Heaven. So that is why I wrote those words on my arm, "...on earth, as it is in heaven..." By them I will fulfill my purpose, give my life lasting meaning, and have the greatest impact, both now and for eternity.