Your God-Given Purpose

and why there is no more time to waste

Why do so many Christians live in the waiting and resting seasons when the harvest is ripe for picking?

I have been in the waiting and resting season my whole life. I feel like all I’ve done is get prepared to do something amazing for God. I am ready to move to the next step, but it’s not exactly easy to define what that is.

If you look back on your life, you most likely can define pivotal turning points in your life that have led you to this moment. Many people who are ready to move to the next level with God have difficulty defining what that next level is because they have simply done what is in front of them to do. Most people don’t look back at their skills, talents, or experiences with any sort of acknowledgment of how great they are or how they can be effectively used to expand God’s kingdom.

People look at their abilities and can’t see that God gave them those talents to do something for Him.

I have always been that person who isn’t okay with doing nothing. Whether it is scrapbooking, reading, writing, or teaching, I’m always doing something, and up until a few years ago, I thought that my talents were pretty mediocre.

A few years ago, I had one of those high-speed, flashback sequences like in the movies. I had just finished writing a 50-page document for my work that I had to learn how to do with almost no help. This document was extremely important because it was used to prove that my school was doing what it was supposed to be doing.

This 50-page document changed me. It may not have been the most phenomenal piece of writing ever created, but it did something to me. It made me have a light-bulb moment: “I am a writer!! And not only am I a writer, I am a curriculum writer.”

My life flashed before my eyes when I saw the moment in 1st grade when I decided I would be a teacher all while knowing I was the shyest girl in the class. Then, when I volunteered many times at schools as a young adult. Later, when I became a teacher’s assistant while in college, I created a series of lessons teaching the students about World War 2 without having any previous experience teaching or writing curriculum. Then when I was a stay at home mom and decided to write curriculum on different topics, “Just for the fun of it.”

Throughout my entire life, I was doing what came natural to me, the thing God put inside me from the moment I was born. I didn’t have the experience or expertise to do it, but I began to do it before I was well-equipped because it was something God put inside me. I was writing curriculum before I knew that it was a thing to do. Before that ah-ha moment, I didn’t even consider it as a career, I just did it because it was something I liked to do. And although it came naturally to me, I had to gain education and build my skills to become good at it.

When I had that moment, there was nothing that could stop me anymore. Once I found out what I was created to do, and I wouldn’t waste one more minute of my life not doing it.

People always wonder what their purpose is, but I’m going to tell you boldly, “You already know it!!”

Maybe you don’t know it consciously, but you know it in your spirit. God already put it inside you and He’s been cultivating it since you were born. It’s that passion and desire in your heart that you can’t help but do. It’s the thing that drives you. It’s the thing that you find yourself doing when you don’t think you’re doing anything significant. You are already doing it!

You might even think your talent is not useful for the kingdom. That’s not true, it is useful because God gave it to you for His purpose.

You might think you are missing pieces of the puzzle to make it effective or useful to use outside of just doing it yourself, and you know what? You’re right!! Identifying the talent and stepping into your purpose doesn’t mean things will be easy. It doesn’t mean there won’t be hours and days and months and years of struggle to make it successful. God doesn’t roll out a red carpet and tell us that the ride will be easy. It will be tough, but because we were made for it, every moment we live in our purpose will make every challenge worth it.

When I stepped into being a full-time curriculum writer, I began to see that in order to do what I loved, there were a zillion things that I was missing to do it, but it didn’t stop me from starting.

This is a huge barrier for people who have a dream to do something amazing. They see these influencers, preachers, or celebrities who are doing amazing things and think that it was easy to get there. They see the success and can’t imagine that it took years of these people who are successful to see any success. These people who have succeeded spent years of daily stepping forward and starting before they felt ready to begin.

Have you met those people who say that “We will have a baby when we are ready?” If you’ve had kids, you’ll know that it’s impossible to be ready enough and that it’s very possible to have a baby when you’re not ready at all. At some moment, you have this baby to take care of and you figure it out as you go.

This is what stepping into your God-given talent is like. You have this incurable passion to do something for God, you don’t know exactly what it should look like or will look like. You realize there are a zillion things that you don’t have in place or ready, but you realize that you just need to jump in and do it. You don’t know how to swim yet but you’ll figure it out once you get in the water.

And then you find something amazing happens: you don’t drown!

Well, you might inhale some water and cough and struggle and dip below the water a few times, but you end up kind of keeping yourself up and starting to learn. You realize that the struggle is not so bad. Actually, during the struggle to stay above water, you actually begin to learn quite a bit. And you realize that jumping straight in the deep end was actually more effective than if you tiptoed from the shallow end to the deep end safely and securely. You realize that the tiny successes while keeping yourself afloat makes the constant struggle ohhh soooo worth it.

Then you realize you get that rush from living fully in the plan that God has for you. It’s no longer about playing safe. It’s no longer about being comfortable. It’s no longer about watching marathons of Netflix or spending money on silly things.

You realize that you will take every minute of the day and every penny you earn to be able to do what you love all the time. You have moments where you tell God, “What else do you want? If there is anything else blocking me, then take it, I don’t want it anymore! I only want You! I only what more of what You want for me.”

Then slowly, God begins to ask for things. He asks for small things first. Maybe it’s that show that you know isn’t honoring to Him. Then maybe it’s a slightly bigger thing like social drinking. Maybe it’s a habit that you spend way too much time on, like 6 hours a day on Facebook. If you haven’t guessed, these are the things He asked me to give up.

It would start in prayer. He asked if I really wanted to be a teacher, then he brought me to the verse in James 3:1 that says “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” Then He said specifically what He wanted me to do.

First, I gave up almost all TV and started filling that time with getting more education on the things I needed to be successful. Then he asked me to trust Him more with my money. I started creating a budget and being more intentional about my giving. And the hardest one for me to give up was social drinking. This one was the most difficult because He had been asking me to give it up for years, and I would always justify why I shouldn’t. “It’s not that bad,” I would tell Hm. But finally, He gave me an ultimatum. If I wanted to continue to live my life as-is, it’s not that I wouldn’t have a relationship with Him, but I wouldn’t get all He had for me. If I did give it up then He could more fully be Lord of my life and I would be able to live the life He planned for me.

I gave in and gave it all to Him.

And here we are.

I haven’t hit any level of overnight success. I’m still trudging along, learning from my mistakes, trying to be everything to everyone, not knowing what to do, what to focus on, what to do now. I am in a constant state of clarity to confusion. It’s not easy. But I do know that I can’t stop. I can’t be okay with not trying. God gave me minutes and hours and years of my life, and if I don’t use them to reveal Him to the world, then I have wasted my life. I don’t want to waste another second. I want to give Him everything.

I want my life to be a testimony of God’s faithfulness, provision, protection, healing, and guidance. I desire more of Him not for my own peace or happiness; I want more of Him, so He can be glorified and magnified among the nations.

Your gifts and talents have that effect on your surroundings. When someone is fully walking with the Lord and doing what God has called them to do, there is a magnificence about them. Holy Spirit is radiating in them and through them. People are changed just by being around them.

I want that, do you?