When I grow up…
I’m still waiting to grow up. I find myself thinking to myself; “When I grow up I’m going to…..” Wait a minute, if I’m 36, does that mean I’m a grown up?? If so, how come I still feel like I’m searching for my purpose? Feels no different than 20…. (other than the grey hairs now appearing in my EYEBROWS! But that’s a different story…)
I’ve had moments where I felt my “calling” was identified, but then God would switch it up on me. In Bible College I was known as a worship leader. Then I was a children’s pastor, then a business owner, hip hop dancer, personal trainer… What’s next? I keep thinking; “God, can you make up Your mind?!”
I would hate to be asked on an airplane, “What do you do?” I think the question is better suited: What DON’T I do! I’m a jack of all trades, master of none. – Except for cooking. THAT I cannot master (and have no desire to)
Many are searching for the “call” or a plan for their lives. A cause to believe in and pursue. Life beyond just the every day workplace. A life that paints a significant picture.
It’s easy to identify the causes of the following:
Mother Teresa: Calcutta India
Darlene Zschech: worship leader
Matthew Barnett: dream centre LA
Justin Beiber (don’t laugh): teen sensation
Do you ever find yourself wishing for that same kind of identification with a cause you could believe in? God isn’t specific in His word about our personal callings. Romans 12 sets the standard, but as for specifics, its not there.
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Romans 12:1-2)
Another version says if we do this, we will THEN know what His perfect will is.
Hmmmm… take your every day, ordinary life and place it before God as an offering. My changing diapers, driving in the van, listening to my son talk continuously about farting life, and place it before God as an offering. Ok God, if you really want that….
It’s easy for us to feel like our every-day, ordinary life is just too “ordinary” for God. That it couldn’t possibly be a part of a significant “calling” or cause for our life?? But according to the verse… it is.
Significance starts with taking on the cause of Christ.
This tweet got me thinking:
“Many times your cause is found amongst your biggest heartbreak or failure.” – Matthew Barnett
My biggest heartbreak?
My biggest failure?
Could those burdens I hold carry with them a cause for my life to pour into? Could those be giving me hints of what God had in mind for me before He set the world in motion?
What about you? Could that possibly start you out knowing where God may be releasing you into?
Connie Thoughts 
This is so great Connie. I just finished reading Rob Bell’s Drops Like Stars, and he says that it’s a Native American tradition in rug making to leave a little blemish on one corner. They believe that’s where the Spirit enters. He describes how that can be so true in our faith. Where there is blemish or brokenness, usually that’s where God meets us and inspires us. I thought that was beautiful.
Best.post.ever! Thanks!
“Pray without ceasing for this is the will of God.” “That I may know Him even as we are known by Him” and “to know the power of His resurection” – in closing — say a big hello to Benjamin for me – Grandpa – Keep up the good work love and blessings!
Great post Connie! I find myself searching for the same answers at the age of 41 :P. I read something just this week that jumped out at me and I wrote it on an index card…it said that ultimately “the call of God is to be in comradeship with himself for his own purposes, and the test is to believe that God knows what he is after”.
Excellent. I’ve heard it said in our culture the twenties we experiment with options, the 30s are about landing on a few areas of passion and interest and fourties we do the one thing that defines us. As Mr ‘T’ would say, “Pity” the person who doesn’t know what that one thing is by fifty! Oh Lord make it sooner:-).