As Christians, we often think that we are not fulfilling our purpose unless we are out in the world doing something “big.” We narrow the scope of ministry to preaching, teaching the Bible to kids in Africa, or traveling around the world on missions. By elevating this kind of work to be “God’s work,” we are diminishing the every day, ordinary ways God uses His people. We forget that God is not only in one place and in one kind of vocation.
We forget that we can (and indeed are called to) minister right where we are- right where God has placed us.
In fact, that is exactly where he calls us to His purposes for us.
I feel the resistance in my own heart against the mundanity of every day life, as though if I’m not doing something glamorous or being recognized for the gifts and talents God has given me, I am somehow not fulfilling my purpose. As though my purpose is really mine at all.
There is a restlessness inside of me that’s screaming to be discovered- I’m all too eager for my “time to shine”- my moments of glory. A sense of invisibility and anonymity has overtaken me, which reveals the unseemly state of my heart- I’m looking for human approval and affirmation instead of God’s.
God sees everything.
There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven
~Ecclesiastes 3:1
He sees the work that I’m doing now- the way I am stewarding what He’s given me. He’s watching to see how I will be faithful to Him in the present. He wants me to bring everything I do before Him:
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
~Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)
If God allowed us to do the big things we really want to do right now, we would take God’s kingdom work into our own hands and minister out of a place of self-sufficiency and pride, because of our own immaturity and that desire for human approval. God knows we aren’t ready to step into those things until our hearts are utterly inclined toward Him and Him alone; at the point when we no longer crave man’s applause but are so Gospel-centered that, like Paul, it doesn’t matter to us what people think or what our status is, as long as the truth is told:
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.
~Philippians 3:8-10
Before we can ever do something large-scale like we dream about, we have to go through seasons of preparation and maturity. And those seasons aren’t sexy. They aren’t glamorous. They are messy. They involve deep heart work that can only be accomplished when we come to the end of ourselves and learn to fully depend on God. We don’t come to this place by our own strengths or talents or gifts- we actually usually come here by our failures and weaknesses.
Since moving to Santa Cruz, God has taught me a lot about my main purpose in this world, and it’s not to be in a ministry internship. It’s not even to be a leader in the church, even though that is something He has placed on my heart.
My main purpose is simply to love Him. My purpose is to enjoy Him, and to bring everything I am and everything I do before Him to allow Him to transform me.
And guess what? I can do this in any job. I can do it any place, with any people. His purpose for me is to seek Him daily, and He is available to me everywhere I go. It really makes no difference to Him whether I am in Santa Cruz or somewhere else, part of one church or another. He can accomplish what He wants to in any circumstance I find myself in, as long as I am open and willing to receive Him. If I’m not, then He can’t use me anywhere.
Maybe this season is not about “fulfilling your calling.” Maybe it’s about seeing what He’s placed directly in front of you and finding Him there.
rhythms of grace 