The Price of Purpose

My children, Caleb now six and Chiara four-and-a-half are at that stage where they thrive on “helping.” As their mom, I like to encourage their desire to help by giving them small tasks to do and affirming their efforts. A few weekends ago, I was mending some buttons on Caleb’s school shirts while Ceaser was servicing all the sinks in our home. Caleb instinctively shadowed his father, becoming his helper as each sink tap strainer was placed in vinegar, cleaned and replaced. Caleb was fascinated and excitedly went to tell his sister, who had been watching TV, just how much of a helper he was being. Not wanting to be left out, Chiara began to cry and asked why her Daddy hadn’t called her to help him. I quickly jumped in and asked her to come and help me as I mended Caleb’s shirts, to which she gladly obliged, fascinated by the different coloured thread, prickly needles and clear-coloured buttons.

I must admit, most of the time my children offer to “help,” they are in fact, slowing me down. Thinking of ways to keep Chiara engaged as I tried to finish my task in a pre-determined timeframe was a challenge. She held buttons to “keep them safe,” and passed me the cotton thread, insisting I use pink when what I needed was blue. After indulging her, and finishing my task twenty minutes later than I intended, the little mama had the nerve to go back to her father and pick up where she left off with her crying and whining about not being called to help him fix the sinks. I was not impressed. She insisted that Caleb helped Daddy with more tasks than I had given her and she didn’t let up until Ceaser graciously called her to help him do some made-up job in the bathroom. I rolled my eyes as I moved on to my next task. The “helper” was not helping.

He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and He prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. ~ John 15:2 (NLT)

That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. ~ 2 Timothy 1:12 (NIV)

Loving God means keeping His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. ~ 1 John 5:3 (NLT)

Our purpose is to accomplish God’s dreams on earth, not just our own. His purposes for us are big audacious and epic. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in wanting to get purpose done that we forget it’s not something we can ever accomplish without God. Other times, we know we have to partner with God, but we get into the trap of striving to get His purposes done, convinced that we are in equal partnership with Him. We are in partnership with God but don’t get it twisted, our partnership with God is not a fifty-fifty one. We are and will always be the weaker vessel in the partnership. God carries most of the weight of our purpose, yet we still have a part to play. We are not children who play pretend helper, fooled into thinking we are helping when we’re not. There is a cost to purpose, a price we must willingly pay if we are to enjoy our partnership with God on His incredible journey of a purpose-driven life. The question is, what is our part to play? How do we know when we have started to take on God’s part, and how do we stay submitted to His hand?

Submit to the process

Purpose is twofold. It is unfolding day by day and it will also be unveiled in all its glory at the end of your life. I heard somewhere that we only get to the most productive time of our lives, influence-wise, in our seventies. I found that mind-blowing and challenging at the same time because I do believe that for one to reach that level of productivity for the kingdom at seventy, they had to have been doing something, day by day, in the decades before. Our purpose happens every day and it is also a finish line. Moment by moment and a grand destination all at the same time. For us to get to the destination, and finish well as it were, we must submit to the process happening in the everyday moments. God requires us to be faithful in the little things along the way, for us to get to the big thing He has prepared for us. Our submission and commitment to the process of our purpose will determine if we ever get to the destination of our purpose.

Allow your steps to be ordered

If you are as impatient as I am, hearing that true purpose and influence are only lived out in your seventies isn’t exciting. Truth be told, I sometimes wonder if what I am putting my hand to today even matters. Such a subtle but lethal lie the devil can easily sway us by. Our purpose is too big to fit in our hands. It is held carefully in the hands of God and even when we make mistakes along the way, He already planned with those mistakes in mind. So yes, what we do today counts because God works in increments, taking what we have faithfully placed at His feet over the years and multiplying it into something that we could have never thought of or imagined. He knows all the pieces of your lives, how, why and when they go together. All we have to do is submit to His guidance. Acknowledge Him in your life and allow Him to order your steps, leaning on His grace to walk those steps out once they have been revealed to you.

Remember God’s track record

Trust doesn’t come easy, especially when our human examples haven’t always been the greatest. But God isn’t a man that He should lie or change His mind. He already made His mind up about you and because of what He decided, He paid the ultimate price to partner with you. That partnership, like any other, only works if we trust Him. What we have going for us here is that God is holy, and more than that He doesn’t expect us to have full confidence in Him simply based on the fact of His holiness. He has gone above and beyond to prove Himself to us, with small and big miracles from the moment we took our first breath, all to prove to us just how much we can trust Him. Deciding to partner with God concerning our purpose will certainly cost us. It will cause us to relinquish our need to know, plan, and strive. It will cause us to take leaps in the dark, sometimes even when those around us have no confidence that we are making the right move. It will cause us to lay aside our old ways of thinking and acting, committed to living lives that sometimes lack human reason. We gladly pay this price, not because we are wise and know something others don’t, but because our confidence rests fully in the One who guards our purpose because He can be trusted.

Weigh your peace

One thing I have learned in my pursuit of purpose is that as difficult as it sometimes is, it is not soul-crushing. Yes, living a life of purpose is not for the fainthearted, yet it is not so heavy a weight that one must struggle to carry it. There are battles yes, there are uphill treks, and yes, the options of life are narrower, but there is so much grace and so much peace to match. The secret weapon is God’s peace. For as long as you have peace in the direction you are heading with Him, you are sure that His grace is available as you face whatever may come your way. The moment you lose that peace, you begin to feel the weight of purpose because somewhere along the way, we got off track. Learning to check and weigh our peace is vital if we are to stay committed to carrying the part we ought and keep from carrying what we must not, in our pursuit of purpose.

Worship deeply

It may not seem like it has a cost attached to it, but true worship, deep authentic worship, is going to cost you something. If we want to stay connected to God, our helper in this purpose-driven life, we must be committed to worshipping Him more deeply. God doesn’t need our worship; our posture of worship reminds us who He is and who we are not, how limited we are and how desperately we need His love, grace and mercy. Staying in this posture is a sure way to keep from carrying more than we should regarding our purpose. Staying in this posture is a sure way to keep from straying off course and a sure way to stay full of peace and joy as we undertake this adventurous life God has blessed us with.  

God doesn’t do things halfway, as He leads us to purpose He will always work in us before He can work for us. His blessings come from the root up, sometimes that involves pruning, which isn’t fun. Our commitment to paying our part of the price of purpose and allowing God to pay His part is the best decision we can ever make in our pursuit of purpose. So, submit to His process and allow Him to direct your steps. In times of pruning, remember that He is a good Father and has never nor will He ever do you wrong. Spend time in His presence and allow the Holy Spirit to give you peace that surpasses all human understanding. In this, you will advance in your walk through the purpose that God set for you before the foundations of the earth were ever laid.