There’s an art to life that is only found in simply being. Being alive, being present and being human, being honest with ourselves and being inspired to do better once we’ve fought the fight to know better. We go through those seasons of extreme motivation where everyone and their cat’s friend can see how determined we are to make it and then at some point we also fall into a comfortable slump that hinders our progress sometimes until something dramatic happens to snap us out of it.
In all these happenings the one most encouraging thing to remember is that we have answers even when we do not know what to ask. One such answer is that we must be still and know that He is God, that no amount of worrying and defensive mechanising can save us when the time has come for our personal worlds to end and that good and bad happen to us all regardless of status, age or creed.
Fear challenges the peace that comes from resting on the promises of God, it comes in and insinuates that we are not doing enough, that we are missing out and we are aiming too high by believing things that we cannot yet see but that we know are surely part of a package of goodness and mercy that was promised to follow us all the days of our lives.
So the moment you decide to put your best foot forward a resistance starts and normal blips and blunders in the pursuit of purpose become misconstrued as disqualifications or indicators that we are the wrong people for the job even though they are part of the process.
Be in tune with your unique ability
I know this earth is full of people who are very good at pointing out who should be doing what and how they should do it but the problem of relying on a human perception for Godly purpose is that we may be led to pursue worldly ventures which do not add any real value the way we were meant to.
Have you ever wondered why so many people start out in one field which they may be brilliant at but eventually end up doing something completely random like a qualified lawyer who becomes a painter or a surgeon who becomes a dancer. When we look at it the latter is a downgrade or even an insult to the parents who slaved away securing the best possible education for their prospective professional.
However the irony is that a lot of times the true traits and desires of these people manifest in their childhood interests and professed desires but they are too small to be heard especially if they don’t have blinking dollar signs lighting the way to the bank at the end of the day. That is why it’s so easy to get swept up in the capitalist tide at the expense of our health and happiness.
This may be a bold belief but I believe that God made us all with very specific intentions and the fact that the desire to follow those things is in our hearts from much earlier on in life indicates that that is your true purpose. We see the Steve Jobs’, the J.K. Rowling’s and the Elon Musk’s and we think they are a brand of people cut from an entirely different cloth than ours which excludes us from such greatness.
We even conclude that their achievements are ungodly and so we reject any forms of progression that threaten to upset the standard education and job after Uni set-up we pass on from generation to generation. The saddest thing for me is that we grow grumpily and begrudgingly in the fields that are socially acceptable for us without realising that it costs far much more to be financially stable in a career that you were not made for than to struggle and fight in a career that you love and were made for and which you can actually make a meaningful contribution by just being you.
Be your most Dazzling self
To you budding flower, your younique ability to sew or make people laugh or drill fancy ores or golf or analyse meteoric shower patterns in outer space or create animations or even the voice-overs in those animations, your voice matters otherwise you would not be here. Don’t allow anyone to devalue your gifts because they did not give them to you.
Instead “…finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praise worthy think about such things..” [Philippians 4vs8 NIV].
Having a purpose that is outside the general expectation of in-church ministry can still add value to the kingdom because people are all around us and every person around us is a potential neighbour who we were instructed to love as we love ourselves. We’ve preached to the choir for a long time but what of those who will never hear the choir because of religious or other reasons? Who will preach to them..not on street corners or door to door but through daily interactions which are more effective forms relationship evangelism.
Just a thought, I hope this encourages a business that almost decided not to open its doors to the public because it didn’t fit everyone else’s expectations. May God who gives all gifts continue to give us discernment over which gifts are truly the ones that will give us peace in purpose..Amen
