You know when you’re using the GPS on your phone and you scroll the map to look at some other point, there is always a button that says “Re-Center”? Just the push of that one little button and you are right back on course and tracking with the map.

Don’t you wish life had that?

Lately, my life seems to exist of a continuous string of unfinished things. I’m so far behind on so many things already this year. It’s only February, friends. How is it possible to be so far behind when the year just started?

I’m sure that some of you can relate. You had great plans to start the year out on the right foot and then that foot got tripped up and here you are having fallen face first into a puddle of “man I should have seen that coming.”

So how do we get back on track? How do we hit the life “re-center” button?

Stop

First things first (and I know this sounds completely irrational given how far behind we already feel) we need to come to a complete stop. Continued movement in the direction we’re going will only lead us further off course. We quite literally need to stop and take a minute to check our bearings.

What is it that we wanted to do? Where did we want to go? How did things get off course to begin with? Taking some time to reevaluate what it is that you should and shouldn’t be doing is helpful here.

I know that life doesn’t stop just because you need to, so take whatever time you can get here. Maybe it’s just a couple hours one afternoon. A whole weekend would be great. Personally, I’ve been sick more days than not this past week so in between coughs and sneezes and whatnot (thank you, allergies) I’ve been attempting to stop and process this stuff myself. Suffice it to say the more time you can give yourself the better.

Make a New Plan

Now that you’ve come to a complete stop and determined where things got off course, you can now make a plan to get back on course. What is it going to take to accomplish the things you set out to do? Are there things that you need to no longer be doing? Finish them well and move on. Do you need to say “no” to something? Gracefully decline whatever it is.

For me, it looks like putting some daily, weekly, and monthly disciplines in place to help me get back (and stay) on track.

Making sure that I have a consistent daily quiet time is on top of that list. It’s hard to re-center your life if you aren’t attached to your center, right?

Making time to exercise every day and being conscious of what I’m eating are next. A time to work, a time to write, a time to read … these are all things I need to fit into my daily routine.

I could (and knowing myself, would) get completely overwhelmed if I tried to add all of these into my life at once. But like any habit, if I can do one consistently over time, then I can add in another, and then another.

Take Action

It’s time to start taking action on the plan that you just created. Take one step. Do one thing. Start priming the pump on the actions that will get you headed in the right direction. Before you know it, that pump won’t be so hard to keep moving and you’ll be back on course, headed where you always needed or wanted to be going.

We didn’t get off course overnight, and we certainly aren’t going to be able to get back on course overnight either. But we can start to fix things and hit that life “re-center” button by stopping, making a plan, and taking action.

I am a horrifically slow writer. I agonize over words. Which word would be better here? How many times did I use the word “that” and can I remove most of them? Is it “affect” or “effect”? I quite literally hate spelling mistakes and I go back and fix them all immediately even though I know that while writing I’m supposed to let all of that go, just write, and edit later.

I don’t know most of the writing rules and I’m not yet in love with editing. I’m not sure I could tell you the difference between a preposition and a pronoun. I don’t always start and end sentences correctly. But I want to.

Haha … see what I did there?

It takes me the majority of Monday through Thursday (and sometimes part of Friday) to write, edit, and publish my weekly post. My writing time is early in the morning and I’m still pretty blurry eyed and sleepy, so maybe that’s part of the problem.

I’m so bad at the process.

At the end of the day though, I don’t think that really matters. I believe what really matters is that I show up every day and I do it. I just finished up a six week blog post series that I probably should have been able to write in a week. Some writers would have had the whole series done in a day. I’m not some writers. I’m me. I don’t have to imitate anyone else or try to do things their way. I have to show up every day, use the time and the gifts that I’ve been given, and do the best I can with them.

I imagine over time, as I learn more and I become better at what I do, the output of my writing will increase. I’ll be able to write more and better. The demands on my time will change. For now though, I am learning to embrace the slow. I’m learning to be okay with not having everyone know who I am. I’m falling in love with the process and the mistakes.

Because all of these things are a part of the bigger picture. They are all the necessary things I need in order to become who I am supposed to become. They are all a part of the process that is leading me to a life of passion, mission, purpose, and freedom.

The same is true for you, especially those of you just starting out in whatever it is that you’ve fallen in love with. Embrace the slow. Love the process. Enjoy the mistakes. Revel in the anonymity.

One day, if you can get through the dip, what you do will no longer be slow, the mistakes will be bigger, and will have an effect (hopefully I used that word right) on more people.

The only one in a hurry for you to be an overnight success is you. If you jumped the gun and got there too soon, you wouldn’t be able to handle everything that comes with being known. You wouldn’t be ready for the feedback, the effects of your mistakes, or the “fame.” Part of the process is learning to handle more and more.

Lottery winners blow all their money because they weren’t prepared for what a life with that much money should look like. Having a lot of money doesn’t make you someone new, it just reveals who you already were at a much larger scale.

The same is true of the myth of overnight success. You think you could handle all the requests, people, and time management that you would need to have in your life. You think your life would be so great. The reality is that is just not true. It takes time and effort to build up the ability to handle that kind of lifestyle. It’s time and effort that you have not yet put in.

One day you will have gotten there, where you’re ready and able to handle it all. It will seem overnight to some. You’ll know though, that you put in the effort and you worked hard. You’ll know that you embraced the processes, the mistakes, and the times when it was slow.

And you’ll long for them all over again.

Welcome back! Today we’re wrapping up a series about discovering your path to a life of passion, mission, purpose, and freedom. The previous posts can be found here:

• Part 0: An Introduction
• Part 1: Your Passions
• Part 2: Your Missions
• Part 3: Your Purpose
• Part 4: Freedom

“Stop doing shit you hate.”

— Gary Vaynerchuk

Your life is simply too short to do stuff that you don’t like to do. To work at things that don’t matter to you or your purpose. There is simply not enough time here on this Earth to do things that don’t make you come alive.

I told you last week that it physically hurts me a little to think about how badly I want you to live a full, abundant life. When I think about all the time that I spent chasing money, position, or influence it literally does put a little knot in my stomach. I never got to world class income levels, but I was making pretty good money. No matter how much I made though, it was never enough. The thing I learned is that, no matter how much you have it will never be enough. There is never enough to satisfy. I always wanted more.

Why? Lots of reason I suppose. We don’t know how to be content with what we have. Our nature always craves more. For me, I discovered that part of it was because I wasn’t living out of my purpose. I didn’t even really know I had a purpose. I had passions, but they were misdirected. I thought this life was all about chasing money so I could provide better things for my family. Inside, it was destroying me. I was doing meaningless work, I was depressed, and I didn’t know how to handle any of it.

Fulfilled by Purpose

When I learned that there was work I could do that fulfilled my purpose, when I learned that I even had a purpose, things started to turn around for me. Not overnight, but slowly. Like a ship changing course at sea.

When you start to do things that matter, things that you’re passionate about, and that fulfill your purpose, it’s no longer about the money, or a certain position, or how much influence you have. I mean, I still want those things, but they are no longer the point.

Money, position, and influence. These things are not meant for me. If I ever have any of them, they are so that I can help other people.

I still need money to live, but I’m no longer chasing it. Now if I have money, it’s money in order to be generous, even if just to my family.

I’m no longer asking or seeking a high position. If I earn it and it’s given to me, then it’s so that I can use my experience to move things forward, not so that I can move forward.

If I am given influence it’s because helping others is way better than helping myself.

I won’t reject these things when they come, but I’m not chasing them anymore. My life is better for it.

Now, to read all of that you would think that I have it all figured out. That would be misleading you and couldn’t be further from the truth. I am still walking this out with you. I am still figuring out how to find the courage to step out of my prison cell each and every day. If you read last weeks post, you know what I’m talking about.

I’m learning how to really embrace the desires and passions that God has put inside of me. I’m trying to no longer brush them aside as I have done for so long. More and more I am understanding, with God’s help, what my purpose is. I’m discovering ways that I can bring my passions forward through missions to fulfill that purpose.

Your Dream Isn’t Just For You

Whatever it is that lies inside of you, whatever it is that makes you come alive, it is not meant just for you. “A light on a hill cannot be hidden,” the Bible says. It is your thing, and it will only come to fruition if you do it ,but it is not just for you. Other people need what you have to give.

By playing small and not going after what you know you’re supposed to be doing, you’re withholding something that someone else may desperately need. We’re all in this together. remember.

When you come alive and go after what you love, you provide something that makes this world a little better. When you, me, and everyone else start to live from what we were meant to do instead of what we think we “ought” to do, we start to fill in the gaps that we’ve left in the fabric of our world.

Because you’ve stepped out, other people start to see what’s missing in their lives. Maybe they start to realize there is something else hidden in them that they didn’t know they had. Maybe because they saw your courage, or because your thing affected them in such a huge way, they can also begin to step out into what they are supposed to be doing. They see your light and they realize that they have one that they can shine too. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle, and it starts with you.

Don’t let comfort or fear or anything else hold you back from going after exactly what you know you’re supposed to. The first time that someone tells you that your thing changed their life it’ll all be worth it.

It’s Not About What You Know

I am the king of getting information. I know a lot of things about a lot of things that I do absolutely nothing with. Information is great, don’t get me wrong. We need to have information to make wise decisions. But if I’ve learned anything over the course of my life it is that information alone will not change you. It’s only action, and action taken consistently, that will change you. It’s what you do with the information that matters.

Remember science class in school? You can think of information as potential energy. You’re getting all kinds of energy built up and ready to do something. It’s only with action, when you actually do something, that the potential energy becomes kinetic (active) energy and you really get moving.

So it is with this series of posts. I’ve given you a lot of information. Hopefully I’ve encouraged you. Perhaps I’ve motivated you to want something more for your life than the status quo. At the end of the day, it’s just information though. It’s up to you to take that information and put it into practice. It’s up to you to do something with what you now know. It’s time to take that potential and turn it kinetic.

Let’s go back to where we started.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…”

— Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Discover your purpose. Dig deep and find your passions. Do things that point your passions at your purpose. When you do that, you’ll find the life that you’ve always been looking for. You will truly “suck out all the marrow of life,” as Thoreau said. You will come alive and you will change the world.

I can’t wait to see what you become.

Welcome back! We’re in the middle of a series about discovering your path to a life of passion, mission, purpose, and freedom. The previous posts can be found here:

• Part 0: An Introduction
• Part 1: Your Passions
• Part 2: Your Missions
• Part 3: Your Purpose

“Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.“

— Bob Marley

I have to admit, I’ve never been in prison. I’ve never been locked up or incarcerated. I’ve never “done time” or been “in the slammer.” That’s a good thing though. I wouldn’t do well in prison. I’ve seen TV shows.

But if there is one thing I can tell you for sure is that most of us live in a prison all the time.

The only difference between this prison and a real one is that this is a prison of our own creation. There is no key to lock us in. There’s nothing really keeping us there. The only thing holding us back from fresh air, blue skies, and sunshine is us.

Every day that we wake up and go through the motions, ignoring what our heart is telling us, is another day that we choose to slide back the cold steel bars of our cell, walk in on purpose, and shut the door behind us.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Lots of reasons, really. For starters, we know our cell. It’s comfortable. We’ve kind of made it home. Maybe added a plant and a bookshelf with some knick knacks we love. No matter how small the place may be or how bad the meals we get are, we still know what’s coming. Our comfort is probably the #1 reason we stay.

Right on the heels of comfort would be fear. We’re scared of what it would mean for us or what we’d do if we were to leave. We’re so easily spooked and we start projecting worst case scenarios for every little thing that could possibly go wrong. So we talk ourselves into staying. Which makes sense because when we’re comfortable we don’t have to fear anything. There is no fear in comfort. But in a real, no-holds-barred life, you get to feel all the feels. That means you will feel fear and all the other emotions at a level you’ve never experienced them before.

Whatever the reasons for staying, the call of freedom still haunts you. As you lie there in your cell, feeling the coldness of the damp cinder block walls, you can hear it calling to you. It whispers to you in the quiet.

I want you to know that it is possible to walk out of your prison cell. To breathe in the fresh air of freedom. You only have to choose.

I want this so badly for you. I want you to go after exactly what it is that you’re supposed to do with all the vigor and gusto you can muster. I want you to experience what it’s like to live a full, passionate, and purposeful life. I want you to live with no regrets, having gone after life with everything you’ve got.

It kind of hurts inside a little is how much I want this for you.

To that end, there are a few things I think you should know about this freedom that’s available to you.

Freedom Isn’t Free

This freedom will cost you something. Freedom isn’t really free after all. You will pay for it by giving up your comfort zones. It will cost you being brave in the face of fear and having the courage to follow after your passion regardless of what others might say or do. It will cost you just about everything. But I believe that when you follow the Lord into what He has for you that He will honor that commitment and bless you along the way.

Many times in the Bible the Israelites had to first step out in faith that the Lord would show up. Then and only then did He actually show up and often fought their battles for them. I’m not saying that you won’t have a fight. Your purpose is opposed, remember? But you will have someone fighting alongside you on your journey. Knowing that makes the jump less scary and the battles for your freedom worth every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears it ends up costing you.

Completely and utterly worth it.

Constraints Breed Creativity

It would be really easy to take a look at all we’ve talked about over the past few weeks and think that instead of finding freedom you’d just be pigeon-holing yourself into a corner.

You had a smorgasbord of choices before you and now that you have some direction for your life you could feel like all you have is this one plate in front of you. “Wait,” you might say. “I only get to eat what I put on this plate?”

You might feel jilted. You might complain. Here’s the thing: you were never going to be able to partake in that entire feast anyway. Your eyes are too big for your stomach. You’ve only got room in your stomach (or life) for what’s in front of you, what you should be eating.

By having a smaller set of choices you might feel like you are going to miss out, or not experience the full joy of what is offered to you, but you’d be wrong.

Instead, by only taking what you can fit on this one plate, you get to enjoy the best that there is to experience, and leave the rest for others. You get to eat your full, but not so much that you’re miserable. You get to enjoy the whole party and not spend all of your time trying to shove everything on the table in your mouth.

By living a life like we’ve described in these posts, you’re taking exactly the portion that you should be taking. You’ll be able to enjoy the whole experience of life so much more.

It’s incredibly freeing.

When you’ve taken away all the fluff, all the things that are actually just distractions, you’re left with a whole world of possibilities still in front of you. There are so many ways for your purpose and passion to play out. So many choices of what to put on your plate. You only need the vision and creativity to see them. Just open your eyes and heart and be creative. You might even invent something new, who knows?

Caution and Warning

I want to be very clear about something.

I want you to know that I am NOT saying that you should drop every responsibility that you have and chase after the winds of your heart.

If you have a family, they are your responsibility to steward. They have a purpose and are meant to be a part of your purpose. One of your missions should be to lead them well.

Maybe right now you’re not happy in your marriage and you think you’d be better off if you could just drop that responsibility off on someone else’s doorstep while you go pursue your dream of becoming the royal cupcake baker to the king and queen of Denmark. That’s not how this works. Your marriage is of the utmost importance and it should be one of your missions as well.

*Side note: Does Denmark even have a king and queen? I don’t know. Moving on.

I want you to understand this as of utmost importance: choosing to move your life in a new direction based on the things that make you come alive does not negate the promises you’ve made or your responsibilities in the slightest. If anything, it should solidify them all the more.

I’m pretty sure that I can’t find the words to explain to you how much I want you to find freedom in your life. The freedom to do the things you were meant to do and to follow the journey that the Lord would have you go on. Living a life of obligation and ought is a prison that only a life built on passions, missions, and purpose can free you from.

Next week I’ll be back with one final post to wrap all of this up into a neat little package … well, as neat as it can be anyway. See you then!

Welcome back! We’re in the middle of a series about discovering your path to a life of passion, mission, purpose, and freedom. The previous posts can be found here:

• Part 0: An Introduction
• Part 1: Your Passions
• Part 2: Your Missions

The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

— Frederick Buechner

So far in our journey we’ve talked about your passions (those things that make you come alive) and your missions (the direction or intention you use to point your passions at your purpose). Today we’re going to talk a little about that purpose; the thing that you were put on this Earth to do.

First things first and above all else I want you to know this:

You were created on purpose with a purpose.

It’s true. On the day you were born God embedded in you a reason for your life. Your life has a “why”.

You may not believe that you do. You may not know what it is. But that doesn’t negate the fact that it’s true. You have a purpose, a reason for being here. And it’s for more than just going to work, eating, coming home, and doing it all again tomorrow … over and over again until you die.

You can feel it, can’t you? Deep inside of you, when you’re in that time between sleep and wake. When the day’s filters haven’t been turned on and your wall hasn’t been thrown up to block out all the things that you want to keep out, you can sense it.

There is something more for you in this life. Something deeper and more meaningful.

We can’t miss this. The stakes are too high. If we never realize we have a purpose given to us from our Creator, then we’ll never attempt to fulfill that purpose. If we never attempt to fulfill our purpose then it doesn’t matter how many passions we have or how strongly we feel about them. It doesn’t matter how many missions we go through to try to make those passions come to life. If there is no purpose, all the rest is futile. It’s chasing after the wind.

So many people feel like their life is pointless, like they have no meaning. I believe that is only because they don’t know their purpose. When you know your purpose, nothing you do from that moment on is meaningless.

How To Find Your Purpose

You won’t find your purpose in a fortune cookie. You won’t just happen upon it as you’re walking down the street.

I love what Buechner said in the quote at the beginning of this article. Your purpose can be found at the intersection of your passions and what you see the world needs. When your passions fill a void left by the world, you might be on the right track.

I think that’s a great starting place, but there is also more to it.

There are two important things that I believe you need to know about your purpose: I believe your purpose is bestowed upon you, and finding it is an act of discovery.

Your purpose was set inside of you by God from the moment of your creation. In your soul, He placed a gem that tells the story of why you are here. Your purpose was bestowed upon you. It has been given to you.

It was not, however, shown to you right away.

I think there are reasons that God doesn’t just make our purpose known to us from an early age. His reasons are His reasons and I don’t necessarily want to put words in His mouth, but I think we’d be too reckless with it. We wouldn’t know how to care for it. I firmly believe that we wouldn’t be prepared for the fight it will take to keep it safe once we are aware of it.

In this sense, finding your purpose will be an act of discovery. We’ve got to be willing to do the hard work of digging into our lives, our hearts, and our souls to find the gem that is buried there.

When you lie awake and night and that sense of “there’s something more to my life” comes over you, that is a chance to dig a little deeper into yourself to find that purpose.

When you do something and you get that little jolt in your spirit of “this is what I’m meant to do,” dig a little deeper. There is a purpose just waiting for you.

When other people call out something great in you, a glimpse of your purpose just escaped. When someone says you’d be awesome at something or that they could see you doing this or that, take some time with that. Your purpose could be waiting for you just below the surface.

When people call out something great they think you could do, or something they see in you, the majority of the time they are calling out a mission. If you dig a little deeper, you can point that mission toward your purpose.

What Does a Purpose Look Like?

You’ll know you’ve hit upon your purpose when it scares you. Not in a horror film kind of way, but more of a “there’s no way I could do that,” kind of way.

I believe that’s intentional. God placed your purpose in you but He didn’t plan to make you do it alone. Your purpose is meant to be walked out with Him and others every step of the way.

Your purpose should be big. It should be scary. It should haunt you. You’ll be uncomfortable. That’s okay. It’s an adventure after all. This isn’t sitting in your living room watching football on Sunday afternoon.

You’ll also have an inkling that you’ve found your purpose when you start to see that it is opposed.

You have an enemy. Did you know that? This is going to be a battle. Your enemy will do anything to make you forget your purpose. The Bible says:

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

— 1 Peter 5:8

And also:

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

— John 10:10a

There is nothing that your enemy would want more than to see you fail in pursuit of your purpose. Satan wants to see you get off track however he can get you there. He quite literally wants to destroy you.

If he can’t get you to not be a child of God, then he will attack any and everything good in your life in order to push you away from God.

But there is good news.

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

— John 10:10b

You’re not on your own. You can have someone by your side to help you. And there is nothing more that I want in the world than for you to know the One who would bring you life.

You were made on purpose with a purpose. This starts with knowing God, knowing that He put a purpose in you from the moment you were created, and that you were meant to walk it out with Him and others over the course of your life.

Guys and gals, this is so important. I don’t want you to settle for a life of obligation. I don’t want you to live just letting life take you wherever it wants to take you. I want you to tell your life where it should go. I want you to live a full, abundant life. But most of all, I want you to know and live from a deep sense of purpose; that everything you do has a point and it’s leading somewhere really, really good.

Next week we’re going to have a little chat about how living our lives from our passions through missions pointed toward our purpose can lead to the life of freedom that we’ve always dreamed of. See you then!

Welcome back!

We’re in the middle of a series about discovering your path to a life of passion, mission, purpose, and freedom. The previous posts can be found here:

• Part 0: An Introduction
• Part 1: Your Passions

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

— Howard Thurman

Your mission, should you choose to accept it …

Haha, sorry. I couldn’t help myself. All I could think of the entire time I’ve been planning this post is the Mission Impossible theme song.

Da da da Da da da Da da da Da da

You’re welcome.

Now with that main theme song firmly planted in your head, we can move on.

This week we are talking about our missions. To put it simply, our missions are the things that we do or are responsible for, informed by or created out of our passions, to fulfill our purpose.

A statement I want to introduce here that I think could be helpful when figuring out what your missions should be is this:

Passion with direction or intention toward a purpose.

Your missions are the direction. They have an intention. They are the device through which you point your passions toward your purpose.

If your passions are an arrow and your purpose the target, your mission then, is the bow through which you fire your passion at its purpose.

We need to use our passions and desires, the things that make us come alive, to help create the things that we are meant to do to fulfill our purpose.

Informed By Passions

You’ve heard the term “passion project,” right? A passion project is something you do based purely on the fact that it’s something you’re intensely interested in. You do these projects for no reason other than you want to. There is usually no compensation or accolades. These are life-giving, “from your heart” kind of projects.

This is the same kind of thinking that you want to use when you are creating your missions. If you ever want to find the abundant, energizing, fulfilling life that you were meant to have, you’ve got to start doing things that make you come alive. Your missions, therefore, should be based around the things that you are passionate about. The desires of your heart can direct you to your missions.

It’s taken me a long time, but I’ve come to realize that I am most alive when I am doing things that are birthed out of my passions. So many of us are doing things day in and day out with no passion behind them. We do them because of obligation or “ought.” But man, it would be a whole different ball game if we could put some passion behind the things we’re doing.

Your passions are the fuel for your fire. They get you up and moving. Taking that fire and directing it through a mission towards your purpose will ignite the world on fire.

Purpose Fulfilling

Your missions should fulfill your purpose.

We’ll talk about your purpose next week, but one of the tell-tale signs of a great mission is that it is in service of your purpose. Life … real, fulfilling, “this is what I’m meant to be doing” kind of life can only be found when you have a purpose to guide you. Otherwise you’re just shooting in the dark. Maybe you’ll hit something, maybe you won’t.

Without a map or GPS to help you, how would you get from one place to another? If you wanted to go from New York City to Los Angeles and you didn’t at least take a map with you, you would be all over the place. There’s a good chance that you would never reach your destination at all.

Your purpose is your guide. Your North Star. Your compass. Point the things that make you come alive at that purpose and then get moving. You’ll find life on that journey.

Details, Details, Details

Just a couple of small tidbits of wisdom regarding missions and then we’ll be on our way.

You will have more than one mission at a time. Your marriage is a mission. Your job is a mission. Your side hustle is a mission. Your finances, your health, your parenting. These are all missions.

You don’t have to write down mission statements for everything you do. I don’t have them all written down somewhere, although I’m thinking I should. Much like goals for me, if I don’t write them down they tend to get forgotten. If I truly want my money to be used in a mission, with intention and direction, then it might do me well to write down how my money should be used, you know?

Your missions will probably change over time. Just like you might have many jobs over the course of your life, you will probably have many missions. As your passions change, so too should your missions.

Your missions don’t have to be a one-to-one correlation with your purpose. There are many people whose purpose is to be an evangelist of the Gospel of Jesus, but that doesn’t mean that they necessarily have to work in full-time ministry. They could work in hockey. They could be writers or cosplayers. They could be plumbers. The connection back to their purpose can be more indirect than having to work in full-time ministry to fulfill that calling. There are many things you’ll end up doing that can fulfill your purpose.

Some of your missions are only meant for a season. Others will last your entire life. A job might just be for a season, but your responsibility to your family or your marriage should last for a life time.

Knowing when it’s time to let a mission die is crucial. When you stick around too long doing something that you are no longer meant to do and you’re only there because it’s comfortable and familiar, then it’s time to move on. If you no longer are growing or finding life there, then you’re just taking up the space that is meant for someone else to fill. You’re hampering blessings meant for someone else in that space and for you elsewhere.

If you want a full, “suck out all the marrow” kind of life, having missions informed by your passions in service of your purpose is how you get there. Remember, to determine your missions, think:

Passion with direction or intention toward a purpose.

Next week, we’ll get into your purpose; that thing that you were put on this Earth for. I’ll see you then!