Tony the simple churches guy sent me a link to the Porpoise Diving Life website some time ago.  It’s an obvious spin on the Rick Warren how-to-be-a-succesful-Christian-by-living-according-to-your-purpose book, The Purpose-Driven Life.  It’s a site for the rest of us, those who don’t feel that they have some great purpose, or worse, don’t know how to stick to a life that’s brimming with purposeful activity.  A site for folks like me.
 
So, why am I so despondent today?  My life is a wreck.  I am depressed, exhausted, a loser, unstable, and shaken at my very core. I have journeyed down a path that can do very little good, but I lack the ability to turn around.  I just don’t know how to get back onto the road with God.  No, he’s not gone—I am.   I’m searching for something or someone to fill the holes in my life, but I have a sneaky suspicion that only God can do the filling.  I want to live for the greater good, to pursue things that will benefit others, but as usual, I’m too selfish.  I want God to take away my distractions and hurt, but he says no.  I guess he thinks I’ll be able to relate to others better if I’m not all happy-go-lucky.  Sometimes I hate his logic.  In any case, a passage from the Porpoise Diving Life website offers some insight into what I think is somewhat screwy thinking on God’s part:
 
Perhaps it’s time to get real. Sometimes, life sucks. There are periods when life seems like an accident rather than anything anyone would have thought up and thrust upon us on purpose. At other times, something incredibly wonderful occurs in life. It’s like you need to pinch yourself to make sure you’re not dreaming. You might even feel like you don’t deserve the good fortune that has come your way. On occasion, a sense of gratitude wells up within you. You feel like you’re floating. At other times, you experience days that are dreadfully boring. You feel like pulling the covers over your head and taking a long nap or pressing the fast-forward button to get beyond the drudgery of it all… [But] Jesus dove into life. I become unsettled rather quickly when I hear people speak about Jesus as if He floated above it all during the time he lived with us on this planet. One central truth that permeates the life of Christ in Scripture is that He had his ups and downs, good days and bad, joy and distress, clarity and confusion, contentment and frustration. I adore how one author describes this undeniable aspect of the life of Christ: “I discovered a man who was almost continually frustrated. His frustration leaps out of virtually every page: “What do I have to say to you? How many times do I have to say it? What do I have to do to get through to you?” I also discovered a man who was frequently sad and sometimes depressed, frequently anxious and scared. A man who was terribly, terribly lonely, yet often desperately needed to be alone. I discovered a man so incredibly real that no one could have made him up”…Jesus lived The Porpoise Diving Life.
 

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