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How often do we wander through life keeping busy, without any concern for whether or not we are being all we can be. Do we let the wind blow us in any direction or have we wrestled with a purpose or value for our lives.
I marvel at people who knew from an early age exactly what they wanted to become. How did they know and was that their decision or was somehow that idea planted in them before they were born? And others move from vocation to vocation, assuming each is a fit until they find it isn’t. For others it takes more time to settle in to what is comfortable and useful.
When a job is lost, or retirement looms, have we not looked backward and wondered how much worth there is to our lives and whether or not anyone has need of our gifts. Is wrestling with your purpose in life a regular exercise or only a response to crisis?
In our reading from Isaiah, he contends that God called him before he was born, believing God had a purpose or plan for him to grow into. Is that the same for all, or was Isaiah simply more unique than most?
Isaiah said God called him before he was born. Isaiah found his purpose and believed it was something God had prepared him for before he was born. His uniqueness, tied to God, made his purpose clear. With God confessed as center of his life; the gifts, talents, and opportunities that made him unique were given purpose by how they were used.
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Anything that exists has a purpose or a reason for what it is, whether as tiny as an atom or neutron or as massive as the sun. If it is there is a purpose! How much time do you spend reflecting, refining, or getting comfortable with your purpose?
For instance, one might have a beautiful voice, which could intimidate or love. It could bring fear or comfort. It could be a source of strength or an agent of destruction. How one uses that voice is determined by the understanding of its purpose. Before one uses the gift of such a voice, one must understand how that voice is best used.
As we think about discovering our purpose or calling or vocation, we must understand that to discover means to uncover – to find what has been hidden but has been there all along. It means to reveal what hasn’t yet seen the light of day or embrace what maybe should have been obvious all along.
We believe God created each of us with unique gifts, which means my purpose is tied up in God. Take Paul, for instance. He was extremely gifted, a Roman citizen and a Jew. He memorized the Hebrew Bible and was schooled in the best of Greek traditions. But initially failing to understand his purpose, his gifts were used to persecute Christians. As he allowed God’s purpose to breathe into his life, his actions changed. Paul’s gifts didn’t improve but were used in a new way as he was controlled by differed purpose – love.
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Purpose can be intimidating, but this is what it means to be called out of darkness into the Light. Like fireflies that simply glow, our gifts change a dark world as they are filled with Christ’s light. When we do what we are gifted to do, God helps every step of the way. His power, not mine, is what gives us Light. And so, whether as a parent or a spouse, a child or a student, a worker or a teacher, a grandparent or a mechanic, if my life is filled with God’s love, my gifts have the potential of sharing that creative power as they are given in response to the love that has made me unique.
Discovering my purpose is simply having faith that God’s creation has a purpose! That is how shepherds, and wise men from the East, and fishermen from Galilee (all with vastly different talents and opportunities) found a similar purpose – they just had different strategies and techniques! And so it is with you and me.
The reality of discovering my purpose is nothing more or less than surrendering to God. If I can write, or speak, or play an instrument, or build a house, or love a child, do you not see how God’s creative energy gives ultimate purpose to any of those gifts? There should be no surprise for any of us in discovering my purpose. It is simply trusting in God who has given so much for me!
Never forget, God chose you even before he created you. What that means is that his love was ready for you and your gifts were created by Him. He is your purpose and promises to empower every moment of your life.
We all have different opportunities and not all of our gifts are always able to be fully understood or used. However, if we live by faith, His light will glow in you!
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Scott Peck was not even a Christian when he wrote The Road Less Traveled, yet he tells of friends of his saying to him once, “Scotty, it was so clever of you the way you disguised your Christianity in order to get the Christian message across to people.” Peck replied, “I didn’t disguise my Christianity. I wasn’t a Christian.” Then he described how his faith came to be:
“One of the inner events of my faith journey occurred when I read C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, a novel composed of letters of advice from Screwtape, a senior demon, to his nephew, Wormwood, whose task is to undermine the spiritual life of a young man. At one point, Screwtape advises Wormwood to make sure that the man, now a young Christian due to their combined bungling, to regard “his time as “his” time.” This sentence, at first, made no sense to me. I read it three times. I wondered whether there might not be some typographical error. How else could anybody think of his time except as his own?
Then it dawned on me that the possibility existed of my time belonging to a power higher than myself. For a good while, it was a most discomforting notion, and still today I am continuing to learn to submit my time to God’s ownership. A dozen years later, however, I was baptized as a Christian.” [1]
God has planted himself in the gift of your creation. Faith is like a strand of your DNA, it is what it is, and you are whom God has made you to be. The only question left is whether you will allow his light to shine in your living, or whether you will keep it turned off for a rainy day. Remember whose you are, and your prupose will always be clear.
[1] [M. Scott Peck, Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 157.]