Another excerpt from an old journal.
September 2017
"Let me live to tell the people of this age what your strength has accomplished. To tell about your power to all who will come."-Psalm 71:18 [God's Word Translation]
"Let me live to tell the people of this age what your strength has accomplished. To tell about your power to all who will come."-Psalm 71:18 [God's Word Translation]
We are constantly wandering around with our eyes closed in pursuit of "purpose". Searching and seeking, we are desperate to find our "calling" and understand our place in life. Contrary to the messages you may be hearing, your purpose isn't something you need to dig deep to discover. It isn't hidden or difficult to find. It will not take years to uncover, after a long movie-esque experience of soul-searching.
Your purpose is this:
-To know and love God
-to listen to His voice
-And do whatever He commands
Knowing and loving anything else will leave me feeling empty and hollow. Listening to other voices around me will steer me off course. Doing what the world commands will only separate me from my savior.
"With joy you will draw water from the springs of salvation."
-Isaiah 12:3
I don't want to welcome a spirit of bondage, enslaved to fulfilling the purposes the world tells me I need to pursue, but instead I long to embrace the purposes God has aligned for me as His daughter. I am desperate to find springs of comfort in His living water, considering His desires for me to be my delight.
As I learn to embrace His purpose for me, I desire to know Him deeper, letting go of the sweet whispers of distraction all around me. Craving His presence and allowing His spirit to overtake me, I am able to love no matter how I am loved back. A desire will pool inside of my soul to share His love with everyone around me, regardless if my flesh thinks they deserve it or not.
But how quickly I can let all of this slip away. I get in the way. The biggest thing that prevents me from plunging headfirst into His purpose for my life is me. I am selfish, so easily distracted, full of worry, lacking faith, ruled by emotion, swayed by society, and altogether broken.
I need a savior.
I cannot accomplish His purpose unless I recognize my deep need for Him. My brokenness and sin is precisely what should be prompting me to draw near to His living water yet again. He leads me back to Him each time. In my wandering and forgetting, He reminds me that His mercy, grace, and compassion never run dry. His love is steadfast even when my love for Him is shaky. His love stretches wide, even when I am on fire for a flash-second and then get pulled away by false comforts and fulfillments.
He has asked of me to honor Him with my words, my actions, my relationships, my possessions- to pursue Him in all that I do from sun-up until sun-down. That is my purpose. I have nothing to offer Him, yet He offers himself to me moment by moment.
Will I choose His purpose or empty pleasures around me?
Jesus, I desire to trade these ashes into beauty and wear forgiveness like a crown.
