Finding My Way

 

This week, my mind goes to the idea of "purpose." I suppose it is because, after more than six months in Texas, I still don't feel as though I've found a calling. Also, I just spent a great weekend with my family at my son's senior voice recital for college. Listening to him sing, with such obvious joy, I was reminded of the words from the movie Chariots of Fire. In the movie, Eric Liddell, who was training to be a missionary, told his sister, "Jennie, I know God made me for China someday, but he also made me fast. I feel his pleasure when I run."

God created each of us for his pleasure, purely out of love. Like a loving parent, I know that God is pleased to see us each find our place in the world. As my children grew up, I often told them that "God has given you each gifts and talents and it is your job to figure out how to use them for the glory of God." It's all part of that "thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" thing. God's will is for the success and joy of all of God's people, we just have to discover how we are going to be a part of that will.

And there are, I guess, an infinite number of ways to pursue God's will on earth. Will you be a peacemaker, a teacher, a scientist, a healer, an encourager? Will you find a way to make change in a global way, or will you concentrate on your own small sphere of influence? Will you reach out to strangers to try to make their lives better, or is your purpose to raise your children to be loving servants of God? As 1 Cor 12: 12-13 states, "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body - Jews and Greeks, slaves or free - and we were all made to drink of one Spirit."

I feel as though I have had many callings in my life - parent, friend, teacher, preacher. But I've also taken some paths that probably weren't my true calling (journalist and banker, among others). But even the paths that may not have been my calling have helped shape me and mold me into the person I've become. I've learned from all paths and choices. And who knows, if even in some of the places where I've felt least equipped and most inadequate, perhaps I influenced a life or a circumstance for the better in even a small way? No action done out of love and in the Spirit of God, is really ever wasted, is it?


So I once again find myself in a space to remake myself. To choose a new path, or maybe pick up an old one. I have to remember to allow room for God to move in my life, to listen, to discern, and to breathe. When I get anxious and worried that I'm not working hard enough, I remember what Jesus said to his disciples as he was preparing them for life after him, "Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branches cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit." (John 15: 4-5) Each of us, if we allow God to "abide" in us, to let the Holy Spirit move in our lives, cannot help but find our path and "bear fruit" in the world. And we will all hear those joyful words, "Well done, my good and faithful servant" Matt 25:21