God Wrote My Purpose
I’m a Type A planner and a little bit of a perfectionist. I’m not a huge fan of spontaneity and I’m also not a huge fan of change. I’ve definitely gotten better about these things over the years, but I know they’re still in me and I’ve learned how to work with them now, rather than always push against them and stress myself out.
Part of learning to work with those characteristics required me to surrender them to God, knowing that He gave me those gifts (yes, gifts) in order to fulfill a purpose he has for me here on this earth.
Why am I telling you this when I’m supposed to be wrapping up a series on Clarifying Purpose (side note: if you haven’t read all the other blog posts on Clarifying Purpose this month, I highly encourage you to do so)? Because purpose is, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, “the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.” When I read that, I hear: it’s the overarching theme or objective for our lives and it isn’t dependent on anything except who we are and who we were created to be.
Our purpose is not dependent on circumstances. It’s not dependent on a mood. It’s not dependent on a person. It’s not dependent on a result.
My Type A, planner, perfectionist self finds that so hard to believe sometimes.
We’ve heard a lot about who and what God calls us to through scripture in the previous blog posts this month, but what happens when our world gets turned upside down? What happens when we’re rejected in something that we know (or think) is part of our purpose? What happens when we lose hope in our purpose?
Well, I can tell you one thing for sure. God wrote out our purpose long before we were born and He’s not going to let us fail at that purpose unless we intentionally step away from Him.
“My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
Psalms 139:15-16 NIV
Our hope is not found in our purpose or the results of our purpose, it’s found in Him. The One who created you and me. The One who created your framework, your “wiring” so to say. This wiring is inside us: it’s the things that make us who we are - it’s our gifts and passions
About 385,000 babies are born a day. Those babies, like you and me, will each have fairly different upbringings: some will be raised in orphanages, some will be raised by abusive parents, some will be raised by wonderful families and some won’t. The one thing they all have in common is that they are all created by God, with a purpose.
Joshua (my husband) asked me the other day why God would trust so many people to be parents when not all of them are necessarily “qualified” (ie., they’re addicts or abusive or absent). I don’t know this for sure, but I believe God doesn’t necessarily “trust” all parents to be parents in the maternal/paternal type of way. I believe that what he trusts is that they will bring a life into this world that he has given a purpose to - a purpose that will help further His Kingdom here on earth.
You may not have had the best upbringing, you may not have had the best adult life either, but that doesn’t mean God doesn’t have a purpose for you and that purpose is good. You’re not going to be perfect at fulfilling your purpose; none of us are, but that shouldn’t stop you from pursuing and clarifying your purpose in a world that is unsteady and scary.
Let’s reflect on the beginning for a moment…
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.”
Genesis 1:27, 31 NIV
In those moments where you doubt your purpose or whether you’ve done the right thing or if you are even good enough to carry out the purpose God has given you, remember who you are; who scripture declares you to be. Remember that you were created in His image and He sees you as “very good.”
Let your purpose in God ground you. Let your purpose hold you close to the One who created you. God wrote out your story long before you were born but he also gives us the free will to choose whether or not we want that path. I hope you choose to continue the path of clarifying your purpose daily, reminding yourself of whose you are and who your purpose is grounded in.
“In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.”
Ephesians 1:11-12 NIV
So, from this perfectionist Type A, don’t let the little (or big) things uproot you from your purpose because your purpose is rooted in God, whom you can trust. Stay persistent trusting in The Lord, even when you do not think you can go on.
“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:13-14 NIV
Some resources I have found extremely helpful in reminding myself of whose I am and what my purpose is are (yes, I’m a girl and these are all very girly resources):
The Girls Night Podcast with Stephanie May Wilson