On Purpose

Grace. Be. Love.
These three words have guided me the last three years.

I chose grace because I wanted to learn to appreciate the grace that had been given me. In 2013, changes in our lives made me realize that it was really about me learning to give grace, instead.

I chose be because I am a doer, a list maker, a planner, and I wanted to learn to be still and trust in God... to know that He was God. When my Grandma Na died unexpectedly on January 4, 2014, I learned just what it meant to just be. To allow Him to hold me up. To appreciate the moment.

I chose love because I'm not great at it. I struggle with loving others as we are told to do so in 1 Corinthians 13.  I often pout, I am haughty, I am selfish, I am jealous... pretty much the antithesis of love... yet Jesus says that we are to love Him and to love others as we do ourselves. Last year was a year of discovering what that meant. It meant that I often had to try to empathize with others... and while I was far from perfect, I truly believe that love was cultivated throughout the year. More importantly, I learned to love myself for me.

So as I contemplated what word I needed to focus on for the coming year, I thought about my weaknesses. I have plenty of them. One word popped in my mind: discipline. I don't have much discipline...

but I still didn't think that it was what I ultimately needed to focus on.

One question I find myself using to frame my life- What am I supposed to be doing? What is my purpose?

And it hit me... that's my word.

Purpose.

I want to live a life of purpose. Purpose can go hand in hand with discipline because purpose as a verb means essentially to decide what you aim to do and then go for it with all of your heart. I want to live a life on purpose, intentionally looking to honor God's will for my life.

I don't want to waste a minute, even though I've been doing exactly that over the last few years.

Webster's Dictionary defines purpose as "the reason why something is done or used : the aim or intention of something."

That's how I want to live... so that my actions fulfill some kind of reason.

Not my reason.

But God's reason.
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I know part of that deals with loving others. Being a light. Being thankful.

Today, as I was reading my first day of my Chronological Bible reading, I saw that part of my purpose as a wife is to be a helper. I'm not always the best at that.

I know that He has other things planned for me... other reasons that I'm here... so as I dive into His Word, that's one thing I'll be asking Him to show me.

A purpose also means a resolution. I want to resolve to be His.  Resolve to do His will. Resolve to stand firm in the faith.

Doing something on purpose means to act intentionally. This means planning. Not just wiling away hours doing absolutely nothing, which I like to do a lot of the time.

I wanted a verse to help guide me, so I looked through my Bible's concordance. Surprisingly, I didn't see that word listed much. I googled Bible verses with purpose and there were lots that came up talking about God's purpose for your life. I'll be planning on looking some of those up over the year. I did see one that seemed fitting, though, but it kind of scared me...

because it's God talking through Moses to Pharaoh.

Not exactly the person you want to be like... the one that hardened his heart to what God was trying to do...

BUT he hardened his heart because that's what God wanted him to do.

Because, according to Exodus 9:16, we all have a purpose.

And Pharaoh was allowed to live to serve his purpose, even if he wasn't serving God's.

And even though I never want my heart to be hardened, I do want to fulfill a similar purpose as God voiced to Pharaoh.

"However, I have let you live for this purpose: to show you My power and to make My name known in all the earth. "- HCSB

I want to allow God's power to be shown to me in my life, and to others through me. I want to make His name known throughout all of my influence.

I'm reminded of the verse in Esther, where Mordacai tells her that maybe she was born for "such a time as this."

I'm born for this time, this place, this circumstance... may I show His power and make His known as I fulfill my unique purpose and calling on this earth.