Tag Archive - purpose

Yet

June 11, 2011 in Encouragement, Life, My Story, Personal Development with 10 Comments

And just like that, here we are again.

Today is the 11th Anniversary of my 25th Birthday. Do the math. Celebrate good times, come on! I tend to bounce around in the introspective zone often, and what better time to do it than on your birthday.

While the past year has certainly been hard, I have seen God use relationships, situations and struggle to weave a tapestry of hope, redemption and purpose throughout the last 365 days of my life that leaves me amazed.  The invitation and challenge through all of it has been to find hope in what looks hopeless, to find purpose disguised as adversity and to find life in what appears to be dead. It has not always been easy, and it was more often a choice than a feeling, but I have done that.

Continue Reading…

 

What I Thought I Wanted, What I Got Instead

June 4, 2010 in Faith, Life with 81 Comments

After walking away from my career and spending months trying to figure out what was happening in my life, I finally got hired and started a new job 7 weeks ago.  I’m thankful to have this job, but I applied and interviewed for jobs that made MUCH more sense to me, but I did not get them.  What I have now is NOT the job I hoped for, but it is the job that hired me.  It was NOT what I wanted, but it is what I got instead.

Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. (Proverbs 19:21)

The past 7 weeks have been a bit of a blur and a series of one hard lesson after another.  On almost a daily basis I come face to face with the deep-seeded entitlement that has been wedged in my heart for years.

Entitlement… It’s “what I deserve”.

Lately I’ve been trying to dig deeper into why my heart has struggled so much through all this.  The truth is, I know exactly why: deep in my heart I think I’m better, think I deserve better and think I’ve earned the right to not have to work this kind of job at this point in my life. I’ve “been there” and “done that”.  How’s that for honesty?

The idolatry of what we think we deserve is a thief, robbing us of perspective and truth in the moments God uses to deepen our lives.

There have been moments over the past few weeks when I’ve had brief glimpses of revelation and lucidity (bonus points for use of “lucidity”), but for the most part I remain clueless about where my life is headed right now.  Some days I find myself being able to embrace the uncertainty of this season better than others, and some days my heart feels like it is in an absolute free fall. There are days when my heart is full of fear, simply because it is more prone to reach for ANYTHING other than God as an anchor and source of hope and security.

The other day I was hanging out with my friend Wes, who has quickly become a close friend of mine.  I was sharing (er, venting) with him about how I felt about what all is happening right now, and I said (in frustration), “THIS just isn’t where my life is right now!” As if to say, “at THIS point in my life I should have THIS job with THIS income, THIS life…”  Wes’ reply? “But Grant, this IS where your life is right now.”

……….

@#$%@*!

Reality check.

He was right. Regardless of how I feel about where I should or shouldn’t be at this point in my life, and regardless of the expectations I have formed in my own heart about where I feel I’m entitled to be at this point, you know what?  This is exactly where my life is right now, and being frustrated, stubborn and ungrateful isn’t going to change that.

I am learning that my entitlement makes me a slave to the expectations that exist only in my heart.

Sara Groves has a song called “What I Thought I Wanted” that beautifully underscores the heart of Proverbs 19:21.

Sara Groves - What I Thought I Wanted

I love the lyric where she says:

When I get to heaven I’m gonna go find Job
I want to ask a few hard questions, I want to know what he knows
About what it is he wanted and what he got instead
How to be broken and faithful

I am learning A LOT about my heart right now. I am learning things about myself that I don’t know if I would have ever learned had the bottom not fallen out.

I thought I wanted a job… but instead I am getting character
I thought I wanted a check… but instead I am getting change
I thought I wanted my story… but instead I am getting His

I often wonder if I would have had the opportunity to see this deeply into my heart had I gotten what I wanted.  But I didn’t, and here we are. It is painful, but it is purposeful. Though the bleeding persists, I am grateful for the wound.

So, what I thought I wanted, and what I got instead leaves me broken and grateful.

Are you grateful for what you got “instead”?

 

My Story, Chapter 1: The Conflict

March 15, 2010 in Faith, Life, My Story with 18 Comments

I love a good story.  There’s something about watching someone experience, struggle through and grow from a challenge that does something unique for my heart.  I don’t know exactly when I realized it, but I’ve known for quite some time now that I’ve been living out a story, with the days of my life providing a narrative pointing to the glory and purpose of God.  I’ve believed this for awhile, but it was about a year ago when I was reminded that the story being told is always greater than the sum of the characters in the cast.

About this time last year, I experienced a key element of any compelling story: the conflict, or as I blogged about and alluded to before, an “inciting event.”  The conflict is a struggle between two people or things in a story.  Conflict is a vital literary device that takes a story from run-of-the-mill to rousing.  The main character is usually on one side of the main conflict.  On the other side, the main character may struggle against another important character, against the forces of nature, against society, or even against something inside himself or herself (feelings, emotions, illness).  Conflict is the opposition of forces which ties one incident to another and makes the plot move.

There are 2 types of conflict: external and internal.  External conflict is a struggle with a force outside one’s self while internal conflict is a struggle within one’s self.  In my case, I experienced an external conflict that served as a catalyst for internal conflict.

Honestly, I’m still trying to find the balance of exactly how much of this story I want to share and when, especially since I’m still very much walking it out.  In the interest of keeping focused on the main theme I want to communicate, I will just say that I experienced an external professional conflict.  Besides, the “what” is not nearly as important as the “why” that it brought to the surface.

I found myself in a situation that appeared to be a threat to what I deemed to be “success” in my career.  All other various elements and specifics aside, I went into a bit of a tailspin.  Actually, that’s an understatement.  My heart freaked out.

One night I found myself walking around in my back yard for about two hours, on the phone with one of my best friends, Tyson, talking through the particulars of the situation. Actually, I wasn’t talking as much as I was venting, searching for answers, grasping for any semblance of purpose in the midst of what otherwise appeared to be utter chaos and disorder descending on my life.

As I rambled on in my confused and fearful state, I will never forget what happened next.  Being the great friend that he is, Tyson heard me out and then asked me the following question: “what are you afraid of losing?”

It sounds simple enough, but that was the crack in the dam for me and the question that would ultimately change how I would see everything.

To be continued…

Have you identified a major “conflict” moment in your life that you can point to as the moment everything changed for you?