I am still very passionate about careers and decision-making. Having gone on my own journey from bioengineer to PhD in STEM Education to Research Analyst in Financial Services (not to mention the jobs in my teen years), I sometimes reflect/lament “What am I doing? Where is the path?”
But in earnest we (people) are seeded and gifted with a variety of talents and treasures. These skills and abilities provide us the means to work, earn and care for ourselves.
The world may make you feel you have to do or be one thing your entire life. For some people that may be true, you may have one career trajectory. But others may move place to place. However, the most important aspect of career and calling is obedience.
It is very easy to chase money, accolades, and status and ignore God’s prompting. Success in God’s eyes is not always tied to worldly prosperity but the promise is you will always be taken care of.
The matter of career and calling is something every person (at all ages) can reflect on.
What you think you are praying for vs. What you are actually praying for
The blessing will come but it always comes with a season of character development.
For example, you may desire a pay raise but if you have not learned to be disciplined in your finances and a good steward of what you are already managing, that pay increase will end up being disasterous. And you could end up worse than when you started!
Another example, you are praying for good relationships. God will provide opportunities to show yourself friendly and develop in that area. You will have opportunities to sharpen your discernment so you can rightly divide truth in your relationships. A wise person keeps wise counsel!
Last example, you are praying for God to use you in a mighty way. He will try your heart, motives, pride, and intentions. How can He trust you with His sheep if your true desire is to glorify yourself? Your character must be refined lest you wound someone else in your ego trip.
Bottom line: Praying to God for good things is not necessarily wrong, but always orient your heart to God things. His purposes, his plans and his will for your life. And in the waiting, be prepared to develop!
Yesterday, I mowed the lawn! As my young adult group asked for praise reports at the end of our meeting, I was trying to encourage myself to speak up. I wanted to speak about a recent development but felt my news (while good) was still sad. Nearly missing the window of opportunity as closing prayer was about to start, I sheepishly cleared my throat and shared.
Before I get into the importance of the lawn revelation, let me set the backstory.
Some of you may know I was diagnosed with Acromegaly in January 2019. This discovery happened after going in for a regular women’s annual, asking for full blood work (because I felt the Lord prompt me to ask), being referred to a general doctor, then directed to get an MRI because they still did not know that cause of the abnormal blood work results. Ultimately, the doctors found a pituitary tumor on the MRI and about 6 months later I underwent surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible. This was a partial success as 70% was safely removed. The other 30% I was told was to be treated medicinally due to the tumor’s location.
Sidenote: That whole process is another praise report entirely (yes bad news can be good news if that good news is ultimately for your good). However, I digress…let me get back on the present topic.
How does this little backstory relate to my excitement over mowing the lawn?
Through my medical journey I had various reactions to the medication… fatigue, high blood sugar, lack of focus and depressive symptoms to name a few. One medication in particular was especially draining. As I was trying to manage my “regular” routines, the regulars become more difficult. I was tired attempting to complete tasks that in the past I could have done with relative ease or at least without feeling faint! This new and stronger medication simply was not working for me.
All this to say, I was very out of sorts, uncomfortable, and started developing a general anxiety over how my days were going to go.
But there has been real change in the last few months! My doctor changed my medication, I made adjustments to my diet, and have seen great improvement in my energy levels as well as symptoms. Moreover, my bloodwork in trending in the right direction!
Therefore, I triumph and have a praise for being able to mow the lawn! I have been able to say yes and enjoy activities that I would have otherwise declined because I knew my body could not handle it.
It’s a beautiful thing!
And as I continue to walk out my health journey, I am reminded of the “even if”. Even if it’s hard, even if I am never back to how I used to be, I can praise the Lord for where I am. I can choose not to wallow in the what ifs of my diagnosis, potential costs (physical, financial, emotional, mental or otherwise), and dozens of “I don’t know how this is going to work out” thoughts.
I can simply say that God has been there for me even if. ❤️
What a powerful revelation a lawn can be!
His Best. Always.
Nita
P.S. I am so VERY happy to be a part of the small young adult group at my church. Women and men of God that share openly and love BIG! They inspire some of my writings and remind me that having the right community around you can make all the difference. I’m so very thankful for this tribe of people I have been able to start genuinely connecting with. Our meeting tonight reminded me to put a praise back on my lips (not just going through the motions) and share this little testimony. Even if!
Like me, you may be in the thick of it. But just because all things are not good, does not mean God is not good at all times.
This is the thought I’ve been trying to impress upon my mind. At present, it is not a matter of logic or reasoning. I know what the Bible says about trial and tribulation, but even then I can drift into complaint and woe is me. Not soon after it’s murmuring, criticalness, judgement, doubt, unbelief, anxiety, depression, fear…the list goes on and on.
After all, we are not promised a pain free, worry free, or even easy lifestyle until we coast into eternity. BUT… I refuse to stay downcast in the negativity and focus just on hardship and struggle. Yes, there will be hardship but I am not alone! BUT GOD!
And so I have to take heart and stand on God’s word. Here’s a paraphrase of a few scriptures that remind me to do that.
There will be trial and tribulation in this world but we are to take heart that Jesus has overcome the world. (John 16:33)
There will be cares but we are to cast our cares on the Lord because He cares for us. (1 Peter 5:7)
There will be weakness but the Lord’s strength is made perfect in us and His grace is sufficient. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
There will be discomfort but Jesus has already sent The Comforter. (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)
There will be emotional turmoil but we are not alone. (Psalm 34:18)
There will be unsettling but His peace is perfect. (Isaiah 26:3-4)
There will be darkness but He is the light. (Psalm 18:28)
There will be sorrow but troubles do not last always. (Psalm 30:1-5)
Thus, with these reminders, with my mind and heart turned back to God, I look up and see! God is always there in my “theres”. My challenge is to put my focus and attention on the Lord, not my circumstances.
God is still good.
When I renew my mind to this truth and I am lifted out of the muddiness of my sorrow, my thoughts are refreshed and soon my actions and behaviors follow.
The storm of my soul is stilled by focusing on Jesus.
Thus, my faith is growing to maturity. Moment by moment, I am learning to stand with more fortitude on God’s promises over my life.
After all, I have seen Him move in my life before and I will see Him move again. Nothing is too big or too hard for God.
There is wisdom in working the process. If you were free from all your struggles, all your adversity, all the blockages to your Promised Land all at once, you won’t have the strength to maintain it all. It would be overwhelming!
Wisdom works the process and takes ground little by little.
Points to Ponder: How does the concept of “little by little” make you feel? What areas in your life can you get back in step with God’s process? Talk to God about your answers to these questions.
His best always,
Nita.
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Behind the writing veil:
A little backstory this post. I woke up at 7:22am yesterday morning. There was nothing in particular that made this a special number, but I figured there could be more to it.
I knew this because I used to be in the habit of looking up a scripture for the time of day I awoke. Without fail, the Lord would meet me in new and interesting ways. This practice ALWAYS gave me anticipation for my mornings because the Lord always spoke to me through a “random” verse.
Yesterday I read Deuteronomy 7:22 and received this beautiful interpretation. This was rather atypical for me because I usually just read the scripture in a few translations to see what speaks to me or try to read through all the scriptures on a first page of Google.
But yesterday GOD DID A NEW THING and gave me a translation of my own. Just goes to show you never know how God will meet you in your quiet time. 🙂
Such a loaded title. What a hefty set of words: Calling, Purpose, Identity. The very essence of meaning in our lives can be summed up with these three words. And yet can be the source of so much aghast, confusion, and searching. We could spend a lifetime trying to find ourselves and still be no closer to the truth.
Because the truth of the matter is… to be found we must look to our creator. The creation cannot determine why it was made. It simply is and exists for a purpose.
Let’s start with the first word, Purpose. Why am I?
The world gives many reasons and answers to this question but ultimately you are because of God’s grace and divine purpose to bring about reconciliation to himself. Our purpose is to know and have intimate fellowship with God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. By this fellowship, this relationship, our purpose is to be ambassadors of Christ on earth. To fulfill the great commission.
Matthew 28:18-20 “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
That’s it. This is our purpose. Yet, how purpose is filled looks different for each of us.
This is where calling comes in.
A calling is simply an invitation. God calls us to join him in his great work. We have a choice to answer or not; to be obedient or not.
I encourage you to think beyond the singular here. You may have many calls over your lifetime. In different seasons of your life. Calling is not just limited to your career. All encompassing, callings are directives from God to go or do a particular thing.
And might I add, this may or may not be pleasant. Even Jesus asked his Father to let the cup pass from him (Matthew 26:39). That he be spared having to go through with the crucifixion but in the end submitted to the will of God, his father.
You see calling will take us into the deeps of despair and brings us to the highest of joys. It all works together. The point of our calling is to fulfill God’s purpose and plan.
Romans 8:28 ““And we know that all that happens to us is working for our good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.”
Proverbs 19:21 “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”
This is where thinking about identity becomes so important.
Identity as the world discusses and conceptualizes it is much about the self. It is about our affinity, personality, ego, and uniqueness. But there is a difference when you think about identity or rather what is means to identify with Christ.
Being one with Christ means we are identified, recognized by God as heirs and co-heirs with Christ. We have been adopted into sonship, daughtership. It is not longer about our old self and it’s labels.
Romans 8:16-17a “the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. And if we are children, then we are heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.”
Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Who are you? You are the idem. Latin for “same”. Your identity is the same as Christ. That is the bedrock of who you are as a child a God.
We are marked and distinguished in our inward selves by the Spirit and the fruit of our fellowship with Christ bears out for all to see.
John 13:34-35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
This is our purpose, our calling, our identity. One body, many members. Brothers and sisters in Christ.
When your heart is troubled and faith is a flicker
Reach out to the Lord, open your mouth and pray.
A Prayer for Purpose
Lord, I confess I am adrift but you Lord make all crooked paths straight. Thank you for hearing my prayer.
Lord help me to recognize my purpose and not to wander from the call on my life.
Lord give me eyes to see the people, places, and circumstances in my life from your perspective. Give me wisdom. Lead me and guide me in the way that I should go.
Lord strengthen my heart and give me courage to be open to new things. God make in me a steadfast spirit not to run back to what I am familiar and comfortable with. It is a season for fresh wine in new wine skins. I thank you for the bounty.
Lord illuminate the eyes of my understanding. Help me to walk by your Spirit, fixing my eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen.
God give me discernment in my decision-making that I might rightly follow in your ways.
God let me not delay in obeying your Word because of fear of the unknown. Your plans for my life are good, I will not fear the future.
God help me be faithful to not forsake the work you have started in me. I will not shrink into despair in the midst of the waiting. You began a good work in me and will bring it to completion.
Lord create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. May I always be a woman after your own heart.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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Dear reader, you may be fainthearted, but I pray you persist.
Being able to do, achieve, excel or thrive in any aspect of my life is wholly do the Christ working in and through me.
For some of you reading this, that may sound like an extreme statement. After all, are not humans autonomous, capable, and knowledgeable apart from God?
You could reason within yourself so but yet forget that independence and self-determination apart from God is exactly why the world is in the state it is in.
We look and search for truth within ourselves and we come up lacking. We try to make laws to govern our behavior and yet we don’t really in our hearts want to abide by them. We want freedom in every aspect of our lives and yet don’t see that true freedom comes in submission to service to God in Christ.
I mean this with all sincerity because I’ve lived on my own accord. I know of the pleasures of the world and its ways. I also know and have lived in my understanding of adoption as a child of God. I have come to know the Lord personally and experienced the truth of his word. My conclusion is this: Trust and believe being The King’s kid is WAY better than “freedom” in the world.
So 😊, with that being said, my life is not about my accomplishments. The abundance and success you see are merely the fruit of faithfulness as a biproduct of life in Christ. And even with the highs and lows (because I share about my good times and bad times) Christ still reigns in me and the power that lives in me overcomes the trials, tribulations, and temptations of the world. That same power by the Holy Spirit also overflows in me joy and love and wonder and zeal and power to live beyond my limited human nature.
Therein, I’ve gladly given up my old nature for the working of Christ in me. I acknowledge my will is not always submitted 100% to God’s will but no matter what this new life and light in me can never be quenched.
The promise of God’s continual presence in us and working through us as we grow in the knowledge and revelation of the Lord is for all humankind. I pray you come to that place of knowing God.
Perpetual maintenance, an unholy marathon of wack-a-mole, that “oh-no this again” feeling…
These are just a few phrases to describe my experiences and attempts to tackle some of my biggest struggles and stumbling blocks. It seemed like they would come back again and again despite my best efforts to manage them. Key word manage…
However, as I continued learning about spiritual freedom through healing and deliverance, I gained valuable perspective. Management was allowing my problems to persist. God gave it to me like this “When you get to the root of the issue, you can stop simply managing the fruit of the issue.”
😱 This phrase summed up YEARS of back and forth and only seeming to get temporary relief from problems. Management was never a true resolution. I was addressing symptoms (fruit) but was not getting to the real cause (root) of the issue.
Consider this practical example. Just last week I needed to get gas for my riding lawn mower. So I took my containers, filled them up at the gas station, placed them in the truck of my car, and drove home. However, I didn’t cover the spout to the container. Therefore, the odor of the gas was starting to diffuse in my car. “No biggie”, I thought to myself. I assumed after removing the containers and a few days of airing out the car the problem would resolve itself.
Well it didn’t. Not even close. I aired out the car, changed to the outside air setting on the A/C, and even had some fragrance pumped in the car from a soap at the carwash… but all of these were temporary fixes. They were only managing a deeper problem.
This went on for a few days and then I remembered…there was a towel in the truck. I had used that towel on a previous occasion to get gas. Applying a bit more critical thinking to my smelly predicament, I figured the towel must have gotten some gas on it. Wa-lah! The root has been found. YAY!
And in that moment, I told myself I would remove the towel. Actually on several occasions on the way home I told myself but then I forgot. 😅
Now you may think, that’s silly why didn’t you remove the towel? What’s taking so long? It’s causing problems! Well, it most definitely was, but isn’t it just so that when I finally find the cause of my issue that I wasn’t quick to remove it? Call it procrastination or forgetfulness but could it be that I was getting used to the gas smell?
Yes, it was annoying but it could be managed as long as I was rolling down the windows. And rolling down the windows wasn’t too bad…who doesn’t like a breeze in the summer. Right? Yeah, you see I bargained with myself and I was getting comfortable with my issue even though I knew the truth of it. The towel needed to go!
And so one day, perhaps the air was hotter than usual, I noticed the odor again and remembered “Remove the towel”. Thankfully, I remembered and removed the towel the same day when I got home. Yet to my disappointment the smell didn’t go anyway right away.
…Ugh, the woes of delayed action. Yes, the towel was removed but the odor had gotten into all parts of my car. Now, it would take more time to remove the odor than if I had taken care of the issue in the very beginning.
Can you see the spiritual parallel here? Some things you carry around in your life smell. They overwhelm and invade your senses. They are all you can think about. But instead of getting to the root of the smell right away you find ways to just put up with the smell, you manage the smell, cover it up, and eventually just get used to it.
There is a better way to live my friends!
God doesn’t want us to soak in toxic smells. He doesn’t want us to manage them or get used to them. God wants us to breathe fresh air! It is a simple analogy but we need to find and remove the “towel from our trunk”. Mentally, emotionally, financially, physically, relationally, whatever it may be… we need to find the root of ours problem and address them with God.
So what is your smell? Is it anger, anxiety, bitterness, gluttony, malice, shame, fear, guilt, hopelessness? Maybe it isn’t something I listed here but something else or even someone else. Whatever it is, I am not here to condemn; I want to see you free! The truth is we all have issues but managing them is not the way to get to the root. Ask God to show you the root and how to remove it. ❤️
Here are some verses to get you started:
“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” 1 Peter 5:7
“I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” Psalm 34:4-8
it's Nita. 