Where did I come from?

So...a life of purpose?
A life that makes a difference in someone else's life.
I feel that this thought is very much counter to the world and the culture that we live in today...really culture is teaching us that we are most important and as long as I'm all right it doesn't really matter what anyone else is experiencing.
Of course we see this attitude challenged whenever we have a calamity whether it be a tsunami, floods or bushfires, whatever it might be we seem to be able to rise to that challenge and wipe aside the self-centred attitude. Australians generally are very good at rising to those challenges which I certainly applaud but for me I am challenged by what I can only describe as a call to rise outside myself and have a life devoted to making it better for someone else.
Sometimes I wonder where this comes from in me...I have never been a particularly compassionate person and often struggle with my feelings towards people that 'bug' me.
Lately it is my experience that I am confronted with people from all walks of life, young, old and everything in between, rich, poor and others and I have become more and more challenged about my attitude toward them.
The other aspect that is a great challenge to me is the subject of being a Christian and what this really means. I'm a Christian. I am constantly challenged by this.
You know 'Christianity' for centuries has been marketed by churches. The church, I don't care what brand you want to look at, has been effectively the sole trader in this thing called Christianity. Sadly, I think, the church has made a complete hash of it. They have taken something that had real purity and have added all sorts of stuff to it and this mish-mash has only resulted in confusion, and hurt, and mistrust.
Think about it...maybe it has happened to you...how many people down through the centuries have been burnt by the church (some literally!)? Man I could talk about this forever but better I think is to consider what this thing called 'Christianity' was meant to be.
It is in that consideration that the source of 'purpose' is to be found.
If I was to put it in one word that word would have to be 'real'.
I want to be real.
The dictionary describes real as 'true, not merely ostensible, nominal or apparent; genuine, not counterfeit, artificial or imitation; authentic'.
Yes that it is it genuine, authentic, true!
So next time we will think about what it is to be real.