Perhaps you thought when you grew up you’d inherit your father’s business. Carrying on the family legacy would be your contribution to bettering the world. But it didn’t happen.
Maybe you planned to be a wife and mom with a bunch of kids and you would fulfill your purpose by having a wonderful family. It didn’t materialize. Or the family broke apart.
Perhaps you grew up in church and you always saw yourself as one who would love God and people by serving in a church. But the place of worship you attend has a stellar staff who have it all under control. The job they’ve offered you is a rotational communion server on the balcony left-hand side for the third Sunday of the second quarter. You feel left out of God’s work.
Maybe you’ve tried and tried to find a non-profit organization or some type of helpful endeavor to be a part of, but nothing seems to stick. You don’t fit.
I hate to tell you this:
You don’t.
Fit.
The reason you don’t fit is because the world has changed and is changing—at break neck speed.
- The previous forms of work, types of companies, products made and sold are vastly different than even ten years ago.
- Families are under great stress. The institution is morphing.
- Churches are often large entities that offer nurture but not necessarily involvement.
Plus, as we are currently witnessing,
- A video created and produced by an individual on one side of the globe can incite bloody violence on the other side. The biggest change afoot is this: We are one planet now. Over 200 countries make up an extremely diverse community struggling to live together on this planet—the world God created and loves.
So does this mean we can all go home now and hide out until the end comes?
No. Rapid change requires all of us to:
Know what our talents are, embrace the cause we are called to, and get in the game. The new game.
God has shaped you for something—the parts of you that are healthy and strong mixed with the parts that are neurotic and weak. You have a role to fill in God’s big game of loving and healing people everywhere. If you will open your mind and heart, He will show you ways to get involved.
Pursuing your purpose may look very different than it did in the past. Now the playing field is the whole world. The tools are everything from hammer and nails to iPhones and facebook.
1. What do you do? (teach, build, design, write, feed, dance, organize, code, consult)
2. Who is your target audience? (children, your neighbors, immigrants, the military, the rich, the poor, random readers on the world wide web, prisoners, the Chinese)
3. What is broken in the world that you can work on fixing or improving? (a specific type of ignorance, prejudice, poverty, hunger, loneliness, slavery, homelessness, unemployment)
Do what is timeless: Pray. Seek out a Godly mentor. Go to church. Read scripture. Listen for the voice of God in your heart. Set a broad goal: “My purpose is to help…” Find a partner(s).
Also: Think creatively. What’s not been done before—but needs to be done now? What tool or skill do you have in your possession you can use?
We must get engaged in the world—not as it used to be, or as we wish it would be—but as it is.
You belong on the planet. You were created to live now.
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photo credit: FlyingSinger (creative commons)
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Gloria Rose, Life Coach
@gloriabethrose
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