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Q. What gives life meaning?

A. One of the most exciting things about being a Christian is that you get to know for certain that you're doing exactly what you were created to do. And you get the power to do it. You personally have a purpose to fulfill. Your life has meaning because you're the only one who can do what God wants you to do. Nothing makes a greater impact on the world around you.

You maintain that each person has his own unique goal.

One important part of our foundation is to accept yourself the way you are. Your strengths, talents, characteristics and desires will enable you to fulfill your destiny. You will never fulfill that purpose if you constantly deny those characteristics that are meant to get you to the goal. You have to understand and accept that you're different from everyone else on this earth.

What's so bad about blending in with the crowd?

On every team I've played with since becoming a Christian, about ten guys have been roughly alike, while one or two have been different. I'm always one of the more unique guys on the team. I'm convinced that the others are alike not because they were born that way but because, at a young age, they started following the crowd, giving in to peer pressure, and became just like everyone else. They weren't willing to let their uniqueness come out.

Why do you emphasize uniqueness?

Christians are naturally going to be different from everyone else. Once we give God our lives, the uniqueness that has cried for recognition suddenly becomes unchained. We are set free from following the crowd, free from peer pressure and from self-imposed limitation. We are free to be exactly who God created us to be. A kindred spirit, a common bond, unites Christians, but that's the only characteristic we all share.

—A. C. Green is a forward for the Los Angeles Lakers and an NBA All-Star.

Credits: Adapted from—A. C. Green with J. C. Webster, Victory (Creation, 1994)

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity. For reprint information click here.

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