I’ve been thinking a lot about purpose lately. I’m reading Jennie Allen’s book, Made for This, and in Chapter 2, she suggests setting aside an hour to pray for God’s anything in your life. This prayer involves letting go of your plans and telling God you will do anything. For Jennie Allen, “anything” came in the form of adoption and writing.
A Dream Laid Down
My hour of praying anything gave me no clear direction and left me with a feeling of déjà vu, like I’d already visited this place before. And maybe I had. In March 2017, I wrote a blog about letting go of my writing dream. My grip on my dream had grown too tight. My life consisted of planning and lists and how to succeed and had very little to do with what I needed to learn or how I needed to grow. So I laid the dream down. Let it go. Decided I would focus on studying the craft instead of succeeding. I would write more, learn, and grow as a human being. And over the last 8 years, I’ve done that. But am I living out my purpose? I’m not sure.
16 Years and Only a Smidge
I wrote my let-go-of-the-dream blog post over eight years ago. In it, I said, “I’ve spent the last 8 years pursuing my dream.” At the time, I’m sure that felt like an eternity, waiting on success to knock on my door. Now I’m 16 years in and still wondering about success, but not nearly as much as I used to. Instead, my concerns fall more to making my minutes count and not wasting what I’ve been given. Sixteen years, and I’m only a smidge closer to definition.
A lot of things are wrapped up in this pursuit of knowing your purpose. You have to know your why, know what your gifts are, find the intersection between your passion and the world’s need, and a bunch of other stuff. It would be nice if GOD would just tell us what we’re supposed to do.
How Many Times Does He Need to Tell Me?
And that brings me back to my feeling of déjà vu. Toward the end of my hour of prayer, it dawned on me that GOD may have already told me what HE wanted me to do. Every random note, email, and comment through these sixteen years has kept me plunking away at my keyboard. Verses of his guiding care that found their way to me right when I needed them. And then there has always been this longing inside me to put words together and send them out to lonely hearts, to love strangers into friends, and offer hope to the struggling soul. These things have always been part of my journey, and yet I still question my purpose—like if this were really my calling I’d have this deep knowing and confidence. But maybe it doesn’t work that way.
Anything Does Not Mean Meatballs or Does it?
I did my “hour of praying anything” on a Sunday afternoon. The following day, still hoping GOD would give me more clarity, I experienced a messy calamity and instead of writing, I spent my evening spooning marinara and meatballs out of the backseat of my car. It was bad. But in the middle of pulling out meatball parts from the seatbelt and wiping away red sauce, I realized something. The point about praying for God’s anything is not the anything. It’s knowing HIM in the middle of whatever. Abiding in HIM. Trusting HIM. It’s taking what comes and living in that moment fully and knowing I will never be alone.
Anything and the Faith to Believe
It’s continuing on the journey, asking the questions, growing, learning, and finding GOD is real, and HE does have a plan and a purpose. It’s faith. And understanding that living out my purpose in life is going to take faith. That sounds scary to me, but maybe it’s time to let go of how I think this should look and see what happens.
How about you? Do you believe we can know our purpose in life? Do you know yours? Please comment below or if you received this in my newsletter, reply back. I would love to hear from you.
And here’s one of my favorite Benjamin William Hastings songs – Abandoned.
Check out my short story “The Door” on page 41.
This is so encouraging! You nailed it when you wrote,
“The point about praying for God’s anything is not the anything. It’s knowing HIM in the middle of whatever. Abiding in HIM. Trusting HIM.”
Relevant for young and old alike. I’m old ish, and still need a reminder like this. Thank you!
I never know if what I write is going to be meaningful to anyone else. Thank you for your comment. Every time someone finds something in my words, I see how it was really GOD’s leading and not about me after all. May we know Him better than we did yesterday and abide always.
For me, my purpose changes and there are side detours. If I am in the right place with God, He is always sending things my way that “grow me”. As I grow, He can use me differently. So the plan changes. Sometimes I am doing the right thing and He says, detour, step over here for a moment, this person needs attention right now. Do I always know the plan? No way! I would be backing away from that assignment, either because that isn’t what I want to do or I would be overwhelmed. But in the right place doing… Read more »
I love this, Mauna. A good reminder that purpose can be fluid as we follow our LORD. Also, i love that holy hug part! Thanks for sharing!