I have been back from South Africa for two and a half months. If I could describe these past 75 days in one word, I would say purposeless. I have gone from class to class, event to event, location to location, item to item on my to-do list – the whole time asking “What in the world am I doing here? Where do I fit here?” I went from an entire year feeling so intensely purposeful to a sudden shift to zero purpose. Where am I needed? Where should I pour my time and energy? Where am I useful?
I’ve been ruminating on this sense of uselessness and lack of necessity. It’s been weighing me down; this feeling that I don’t know why I’m doing what I’m doing; this feeling that my life is being guided and dictated by a to-do list. That’s not a flourishing or thriving way to live. That’s not even a good way to live. That’s not even an ok way to live. That’s a purposeless way to live.
The other day I was reminded of a time about 4 years ago; a time when my life shifted from old to new. One of my favorite questions to ask people is “What first drew you to God?” It points directly to the specificity of God in that He calls people in the exact way they need to be called. For me? What first drew me to God was that He gave me purpose. Ironic huh? Four years ago as the first semester of my junior year of high school came to a close, God instilled my life with purpose. He gave me a life and a mission greater than myself – living for something far beyond and far bigger than anything I was living for. He gave my life an eternal purpose.
In a moment my life became purposeful apart from what I did; apart from what I said; apart from my grades, activities, interactions. But because of who I live for and because of why I live.
So here I have been, living these past weeks stuck in this feeling of no purpose, and yesterday God reminded me, “Chels, remember how I drew you in. I gave your life meaning. Your grades didn’t do that. Your interactions didn’t do that. Your personality didn’t do that. But I did. I gave your life purpose.”
How silly it is that what enticed me about a life of faith was something I was so quick to forget.
When anyone has asked me how I’ve been, my response has been something along the lines of “Struggles. ” I was talking with a friend the other day about identity. I have been so quick to define myself as a struggler; so quick to don the identity of weakness and failure, yet so incredibly slow to wear the identity of who I actually am. “Struggles”defines me by what I do, not by who I am. Yet the identity that is momentary and based on my own ability [or lack thereof] is the first to come to my lips. That is so backwards. And such a lie.
I struggle, but I am not a struggler. I have struggles, but I am not defined by them. I am strong. I am valued. I am a conqueror. Not because I struggle, but because God has equipped me and is equipping me to fight and to overcome. I sin, but I am not defined by my sin. I am defined by who God has made me to be and by who God is making me to be.
Will I struggle? Of course. I’m not perfect. Jesus struggled. But He defined Himself by who His Father was and by His purpose in this world.
I am a purposeful conqueror. And the beauty of it is, not because I say so.
Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found.
