Have you ever deeply questioned your purpose in this life. I have been working through this concept of purpose for probably 3 years now. My need to reframe my purpose came as I approached turning 60. My kids were now adults. Work was changing. I knew my family would need me but in different ways. I needed to take better care of myself. And in the quiet of the night, probably the most painful questions focus on how I have invested my time, energy, and gifts over my adult life. Have I made the right choices, been a good parent, built strong foundations of faith, been an encourager to those in my life, served others meaningfully and on and on.
You see we all have a well within. It is where our conscience and the Spirit speak to us but also where the enemy of truth rears its head with deceit. It is from that well that we hear messages. Messages that guide us and messages that discourage us. Messages that bring clarity and messages that create internal chaos. Messages that are light and truth and those that are deceitful and dark. Picture for a moment a well, you could envision a dark and dank hole or a place of danger. Or, you can remember its purpose is life-saving. A place that provides for our greatest physical need. While in Africa, I remember seeing women with big urns or clay pots walking long distances just to get water. They understood the importance of a functioning well and structured their day to get to that life-saving water. Our internal well can be a dark place but has the ability to send us life-saving spiritual messages if we just listen and reinforce truth.
My search for purpose incorporates some fundamental truths. For me, those truths are bringing a new light to this journey. One of things that I have come to believe about this concept of purpose is that it is not a destination but a process of becoming. Becoming who God envisioned us to be even before we were born. Taking all that was instilled in us and what we have learned from our choices and experienced through our life circumstances, we are in a process of becoming who we were called to be.
Those echoes from the well can spur us along our path or create hesitation or doubt. The echoes of deceit can suggest mistakes are life sentences. Or, we are somehow been disqualified by the very things that make us qualified to love others well. We hear messages quietly which reinforce a world's view rather than the divine view. We can feel that we reflect the darkness of our worst decisions or our most challenging circumstances. We lose sight of the fact that we are on a divine journey to uncover who God intended us to be in this world and to whom we are called to reflect the light of the very character of God
When we truly believe that and sift through messages from our well focusing on those of truth and light, we begin to see our worth. We can accept and incorporate that we are special and unique. Our journey is not a destination. We are so much more that our circumstances or our worst decisions or even our accomplishments. We don't have to be fully equipped to move forward in a direction that we feel called to. The old saying that God doesn't call the equipped, he equips the called is true. He is taking us on a journey of purpose. He is orchestrating connections. There is so much hope in that.
In Jeremiah 1:5, God's words were, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart." Just take a moment to contemplate that. The God of the universe intentionally created us. He knew what our journey would be based on what he has planned for us to do. He sets us apart for his good works. We are chosen for a divine assignment. If you can begin to echo those messages, you begin to understand how valuable and worthy you are. You can step into this journey of becoming with confidence and joy.
Let the echoes from our well drown out the messages that hold us back, with the message of worth and faith propelling us in this journey of becoming.
Amen!
