Your Purpose In God’s Time

Thank you for all your responses to Ginger’s post. I could say, “a-men” to all of them. In fact, I found comfort in knowing we all feel inadequate from time to time. This is a good reminder to be kind to oursleves and others.

THE WINNERS OF GUILTLESS LIVING ARE:

JUANITA @ ljhead93@yahoo.com

COURTNEY J @ courtney.d.jackson1@gmail.com

AMBER M @ txprincessamer@aol.com

Congratulations, ya’ll!!!

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Purpose. It’s a hot topic. Everybody is looking for his or her purpose in life. Some have found theirs, or they believe they have, others are still seeking. Wondering.  Praying.

I was the only child of my parents born without a talent. Or so it seemed. My brother was an all-star athlete, and my sister performed many musical plays in our living room. She also played the piano and sang in church as my parents looked on with pride. I burned with jealousy.

Although I was raised to believe God had a purpose for my life, and in His time would reveal it, I had the need to help God out. Anybody? Yet, anything you and I can do on our own is too small to be God’s purpose for our lives.

God makes us a promise such as, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord” (Jere 29:11). Our only job is to trust in that promise.  Instead, we seek ways to help God out—as if He needed our help. Basically, we’re impatient. We get annoyed when God doesn’t set His watch with ours. Eventually, we run ahead of Him. That’s exactly what I did.

Green with envy, I decided to follow in my brothers footsteps and try my hand at softball. At first, my career looked promising. When I signed up to play softball, the coaches fought over me. Well, they fought over my last name. They assumed I was as good of an athlete as my brother. Boy, were they wrong. When my coach realized I couldn’t catch, throw, or hit a ball, he tried to trade me to another team. Can you believe that? How RUDE!

When sports fell through, I begged my mom for piano lessons so I could play like my sister. I was on my second month of lessons when my piano teacher informed my mother that instead of improving I was regressing. I actually knew less about playing the piano than I did the week before. Now, that’s a gift!

By this time, I had decided that my older siblings had taken all the good genes leaving me deplete of any talent at all. When in fact, God was teaching me a lesson in trust.

When God makes me a promise, it’s not my responsibility to make it happen. It’s His. He only asks me to trust, wait, and believe. That’s so stinking hard! It’s tough because we fear He’ll forget about us, or something like that. But God never forgets. He’s always at work for our good.

I learned over time that God is working to provide all I need to fulfill His calling on my life. He uses good times, bad times, and everything in between.

I had just turned thirty when I felt God tugging at my heart. While I didn’t know where He was leading, I followed. I obeyed. I walked through open doors and took risks that scared the bee-gee-bees out of me. Before I knew it, people were saying things like, “You have a real gift when you speak.”

“I can feel the Presence of the Lord, when you’re teaching.”

“I was at the conference where you spoke last weekend, and my life was forever changed.”

Who Knew? God did. And he knows the plans He has for you as invisible as they seem now. That’s a promise! God has not forgotten you. He’s preparing you. And when it’s time, He’ll come get you. It’s worth the wait, my friend.

Today, ask yourself, “I’m I running ahead of God?” If so, why?

“Do I believe He has a purpose for me—a plan to give me a hope and a future?” If you do, then you can be certain God will make the invisible visible in His time.