Skip to main content

What Is Your Purpose?

 A couple weeks ago, a young woman asked me, "what is your purpose?" at kind of threw me off. Ok, it really threw me off. It seemed a bit touché to say "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever" when she was looking for specifics. And I get why she's asking. My life does seem pretty random. Thirty-two years old, working on my BA, teaching music part time, working at a coffee shop part time, and living at least an hour from my closest family member. On paper it looks...well...it looks random. I get it. Kind of hard to pull a purpose out of the randomness. 

I was talking to the Lord about it because sometimes, even for myself, the person living this life, it's hard to find a specific purpose in the randomness. Sometimes I wonder,  when I get to Heaven if I'm  going to have anything to offer God, if while other people show up with their kids, I'm going to hold out empty hands and say "it's just me." I mean, if He wants soldiers to defeat spiritual strong holds and make war on the Kingdom of Darkness, my life doesn't look like much. 

On paper. 

But God doesn't work the way we think. There are lots of examples of how He's worked things out when on paper they seemed hopeless; Gideon and his 300 men defeating the Midianites, water from a rock, a virgin carrying the Salvation of the World. God views things differently than we do. We need to remember that He has a plan and it is a good one, even if it doesn't make a ton of sense to us, His tiny-minded little image bearers. That's okay. Nowhere does He command us to sort everything out. "The secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things revealed belong to us and to our children" (Deuteronomy 29:29). It is not for us to delve into the things that are not revealed. For example, I don't specifically know how heavenly treasure actually works. I know Jesus blesses whoever gives a cup of cold water in His name (a little thing) and if we've loved the least we've loved Him (another little thing) and that faith the size of a mustard seed moves mountains (another little thing), so maybe heavenly treasure is accumulated through a million small obediences and sacrifices. 

Maybe, when we get to heaven, we're going to discover the people with the most treasure are the ones who lived ordinary, random lives, who prayed and walked with God and loved their neighbours. 

I've been reading Feminine Threads by Diana Lynn Severance before bed. It's a book on women in church history, very accessible to read but not captivating like a novel. Right now I'm reading about God's daughters from the late Middle Ages, and this description of Margaret of Scotland struck me. "In her roles as wife, mother, and queen, Margaret was able to let the light of the gospel of Christ shine throughout Scotland." If someone took three pages to write my life story, could they write the same? "In her roles as friend, aunt, music teacher, and barista, R.D. was able to let the light of Christ shine in her city." I hope so. 

In the end, that's all the matters, isn't it? Loving the Lord our God with all our heart and sharing His love with this dying world? When we get to Heaven, I don't think the places we shared the light in will matter too much, whether it was on our playroom floor or in an office or walking around our neighbourhood or frothing milk for a latte, it will just matter that wherever we lived, we lived for God. 

There is no greater purpose. 


What I'm Reading Lately 

    • Feminine Threads by Diana Lynn Severance. Honestly, I can't recommend this one enough. It is informative, interesting, and well written. 
    • We just finished The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie for book club. If you're looking for something clean and interesting, this fits the bill. 
    • This week I also finished The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy 
    • And I finished Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass for school. 
    • I'm also 3/4ths of the way done Being Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn. We read Becoming Elizabeth Elliot for book club a couple years ago and the writing was so dull I felt like my brain was chewing cardboard. This one is so much better that it's almost unbelievable that they are by the same author. However, I do have a lot of thoughts about Elisabeth Elliot and will probably do a post about her in the future. 

What I'm Enjoying Lately 

    • My little Christmas tree is up! 
    • We've been gifted snow this past week and it's so cozy living in a snow globe. 
    • Homemade soup and sourdough 
    • I've moved my couch so that it faces the windows. Freshening up the furniture layout is always nice. 
    • Beeswax candles



"But her secret life was such as became a true servant of God." said of Margaret of Scotland 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Back in Time

I pulled into the laneway of a home that I'm sure would have looked quaint if I could have seen it through all the trees. The sign by the road read "hanging baskets and railroad ties" and lo and behold that was just what I was looking for (I mean the railroad ties, not the hanging baskets).  I parked close to the grass incase a buggy had to get by and slipped out of the red mini van. I didn't see anyone. That, however, does not mean that someone did not see me. I strolled over to look at the flowers to wait for someone to come out and see what the crazy girl with the pony-tail was doing on their property. A large dog, missing his right eye, managed to find me first and it was while I was petting this friendly, half blind, beast that the house seemed to spit out a young lady. She was wearing a long dress, an apron, and a head covering. She walked toward me with a smile and I recognized her from a singing I had gone to at the neighbors place a few months earlier. I ...
2 comments
Read more

Mending your Fence

Since the weather has been warmer than usual this past week I've noticed some strange happenings in day to day life, both in the world and in the church. Somehow it seems that one of our good friends wants to be seen more and more, her name is Skin. Skin does not really like to be covered up by clothing when it is nice and warm out so we give her her lead and let her soak up one of her best friends, Sunshine. This is all fine and dandy for Skin and Sunshine but there is a problem with one of our other good friends, Eyes. Eyes LOVES winter because that's when Skin is controlled in the wonderful boundaries of clothing. However, when spring comes around it's as if Skin is too strong for the fence of clothing and she is let free to run wild. This causes a lot of trouble and anxiety for Eyes. Eyes wants to glorify God by not tempting the heart it's involved with to lust. Now, what God created Eyes for was to look at things and to see the good things God has done. It's tr...
2 comments
Read more

Gifts; A Joyful Face

I sat at the booth and checked my phone to make sure my friend knew where to find me. She had just parked and was walking over. Perfect. I ordered a cup of tea and was contentedly sipping on it when she entered. Seeing me immediately, she made a beeline for our table, took her seat, and looked up.  Her face was filled with joy as she asked how I was.  "I'm good," I said, slightly amused. "Why are you so happy?" "Oh," she shrugged. "I just am."  "I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices." ~Psalm 16:8-9a "As in water face reflects face, so the heart of a man reflects the man." ~Proverbs 27:19 Amidst all the sorrow and anger and fighting of our broken world this woman's face stood out. The joy in her eyes reflected the joy of her heart; a heart that had spent time with Jesus.  Throug...
Post a Comment
Read more