Mission & Purpose

When was the last time you thought about your mission in life?
Businesses have missions to help define their purpose.
Organizations in the social sector (non-profits, schools, etc.) also have them, or should.
Mission statements should answer who you serve, how you do it, and why.

For years I have had a mission statement for my classroom that was more geared to my way of approaching instruction and also a separate statement for how I live out my life mission. Recently I have re-worked them and combined the two into one big ‘ol, all-encompassing mission statement for my life.

When I really think about it, this over-arching mission IS what drives me in all that I do, whether it’s interacting with students, parents, or colleagues at school, interacting with the cashier at Kroger, or friends, or family, or anyone else who God places in my path.

Mission statements are supposed to be the lighthouses that keep guiding us back to our chosen paths. We should be checking what we do against our missions in order to stay focused. It should help us in deciding when to say “yes”, when to take on new commitments, and when to charter new ground. And each of our missions should also help us refine and define what we do, help us evaluate, and give us permission to say “no”.

I hesitated to share mine with you, but I decided to for a couple of reasons.
1. Maybe it will encourage you to write your own
2. Maybe you can help hold me accountable if you see me wavering in living mine out as I intend to be resolute in its pursuit

I was placed on earth for this main purpose: To encourage and support others
I was also placed on earth for this secondary reason: To carry out that main purpose - encourage and support others - in the secular marketplace
(What I mean by this is that sometimes those of us who are living for Christ decide to carry out our purpose in a Christian setting. I feel called to carry out my purpose in the melting pot of society and all that that means. Either setting, in my opinion, is equally necessary and important.)

Therefore, this is my life mission:
I will leave a legacy that is shaped by how I treat others and how I reflect the light of Christ in all that I do. I will love others well, be the "hands and feet" in every opportunity, and enhance the lives of all I encounter through inspiration, encouragement, and support. I will give of self and resources sacrificially, and serve with humility, compassion, and excellence so that I leave a positive and lasting mark on the world and one day I hear, "Well done, my good and faithful servant!"

Do I always hit the mark, every day, every time? Of course not…I’m human. But living it every minute is the goal. Some days I fall short. Some days I don’t love well, some days I miss opportunities to be the hands and feet, some days I’m grouchy. Some days I am not serving with compassion and excellence – especially those I love most. Of course, some days I wonder if my boys’ mission statements include a line about breaking their mother’s spirit with their picking and fighting with each other and never putting their dishes in the dishwasher!!!

But if every day I wake up and living out this mission is what drives me, what I check everything against, what I filter my interactions and reactions through, then I think I have a pretty good chance of getting better every day, leaving a positive and impactful legacy, and hearing “Well done!”

I encourage you to wrestle with your mission and purpose if you haven’t.
How? The best way is to spend some quiet time alone with God and ask him to reveal it to you. There are also several great books that can help you discern what it is, but know that it is probably something very simple that you can do in multiple settings and job situations (as mine is encourage and support, which can be done through many avenues). It also likely has something to do with your natural gifting, passion, and hard-wiring, something that you're inclined to do already, but if you were really cognizant of it, focused on it, you could really use it to build the Kingdom.

How you live out that very simple theme will be determined by the passion that burns at your core. For instance, you could discover that your purpose is to help others. If your passion is medicine and science, you might live out that purpose by becoming a neurosurgeon. But if that is your purpose and you love the elderly, you might live that out by working or volunteering in a nursing home. The purpose here is simple and is a universal theme, how it is lived out is highly personal and tied to the person’s passion and gifting.

How do you craft a mission statement? Jot down some notes about what you want your life to be about – to stand for – what you will do, for whom you will do it (your family, your church, the world), and why you will do it. Ask God to help you define it if you’re having trouble. Don’t worry if it’s perfectly written or if it’s pretty. Don’t worry what anyone else would say about it. No one else even has to see it. It’s just for your benefit.

Keep it where you can see it. Read it every day. Let it guide you. Check what you do against it; filter your words and actions through it.

It’s your life. It’s your purpose. It’s your mission.

Live a life that has your mission written all over it, and your own powerful, unmistakable legacy will be born.

Question: What is your life mission? Why? Will you take the time and effort to put it on paper?

That Way for a Reason

Below is one of my favorite quotes ever:

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight ~ but never stop fighting!" -e.e. cummings

I’ve always felt like I march to the beat of a different drummer…
…I’m a contrarian.
I like to do my own thing, I don’t like to be told what to do (though I’ve never ever been rebellious), I’m certainly my own person, I don’t like to follow the crowd, and I don’t like to be copied.
I’ve always been like that. Always.

Yet I feel that the world is constantly trying to mold me and craft me into what it wants me to be.

You know those hard middle school years…when you feel like a huge dork 100% of the time? I tried just a little bit to fit in then… But trying to fit in was like trying to put a square peg in a round hole, and I quickly realized that it couldn’t be done.

I had to learn to love the things that made me different, even if those things seem strange (or however they seem) to others.
And through learning to love those things about myself over all of these years, I think I’ve also learned to really appreciate the differences in others.

As a society we are quick to want to focus on how we are all alike, and that’s not a bad thing to focus on if that’s what it takes for us to get beyond the small stuff and get to know the heart of someone. But is that really the only way we can embrace each other as humans?

In fact, the world even wants everyone to be alike. Why is that? Why do we try to conform and to get others to as well? Why is peer pressure such a problem? Why do we seek other’s approval so much? Why do we try to impress? Why don’t we passionately, but respectfully argue more? Why don’t we challenge each other to think for ourselves a little more? And when someone blindly states something as truth, why don’t we kindly ask them to back it up with facts? Why don’t I kindly ask them to?

I don’t want to live in a world where we all look the same, act the same, talk the same, think the same.

As a society, why can’t we acknowledge that we are all different, yet “wonderfully made”?
Embrace the differences.
Celebrate the differences.
Enjoy the differences.
Find the good in the differences.
And talk openly and honestly about the differences.

I get the whole “finding the common ground” thing, I guess…
…OK, I guess I don’t get it!!!!
We are supposed to love others just because they are created in the image of God, not because they are like us.
While I’ll admit that is it more fun to be close friends with people who like to do the same things as I do and, those details shouldn’t matter when it comes to treating others well, showing respect, and appreciating them as people who are made by God.

Have you ever felt “not like yourself”? I absolutely adore singing in our church’s worship choir. It is an awesome, God-filled experience every time our voices join together. Oh, how I love it! We have to wear all black when we sing, and I couldn’t agree more with the reasoning behind it. It’s just that in doing so, I feel completely unlike me: colorful, LOTS of jewelry, a little on the eccentric side…yet there I have to blend in, which is something I’m not good at nor like to do.
And in choir I have to totally reign in the whole shoe thing. (Nothing is better than a great, sassy pair of shoes to make that black dress pop! But the plain black is required.)

Maybe you’re a sporty girl (which I have trouble even identifying with), and you live in tennis shoes and adidas pants. When you have to wear a dress and heels, if you even own any, you feel totally unlike yourself and can’t wait to change clothes!
Maybe you’re a little bit country (Marie) and someone else in your life is a little bit rock n’ roll (Donny) and they keep making you listen to their music…and it’s just not you.

You get the idea…

But I want to challenge you to start thinking about it in a new way:
Every cell in my body aches for me to be 100% of who I am…to be true to myself…regardless of how different that is from the next person.
And I believe that God made me like that for a reason.
He made you like you are for a reason, too.

I believe with my whole heart that each of us is put on this earth for a specific purpose. That particular purpose can only be lived out, that very legacy left, if we embrace what makes us uniquely us. We’re not supposed to be like anyone else. We’re supposed to reject conformity and cookie-cutter-ness!

If we try to be something we’re not, aren’t true to ourselves, or ignore what ignites our passion, we are defying God and the very reason he created us.

Song of Solomon 6:9: …my perfect one is unique…


It is our job and responsibility to embrace and develop who we are. To use our God-given talents. To work on ourselves so that we are continually improving. To speak about our obstacles. To go where our heart is truly leading us…for that feeling in our hearts that we can’t ignore is God speaking the calling upon our lives.

And I think it is our job and responsibility to realize that about other people, too.

This week a friend and I talked & emailed about her son, his ADD, and a less than helpful parent-teacher conference. It got me thinking about this very subject. All of us, with all of our hang-ups, all of our quirks, idiosyncrasies, baggage, and experiences are made the way we are for a reason.

It’s what we do with all of it that matters.

What I so badly want is for her son’s teacher to understand that while his ADD is a part of who he is, it is not WHO he is. He is wonderfully made, ADD and all, through a perfect formulation of skills and talents and passions and maybe even some quirks, so that one day he might fulfill the purpose for his life. The very one for which God created him. The one that no one else in the universe can fulfill but him. Her son is the way that he is for a reason. And he needs to be embraced at home, at school, and in society for that perfect combination, whether or not it includes ADD.

I want her son’s teacher to find every wonderful thing in that boy and let my friend know that while there may be some things to work through, she loves him for all of who he is. That is our job as teachers: to value every cell that knits that child together and then to take him as far emotionally, socially, and academically as he can go.

And as a parent, I know from experience what it feels like to have someone (even lots of people) make you feel like the only thing about your child is that “one thing”. What about my kid’s creativity, his problem solving ability, his insightfulness that is way beyond his years, his very dry and sarcastic humor, his leadership ability? Those are the things that really set him apart, that make him march to the beat of his own drummer. Those things matter so much more. And, my kid apparently needs that “one thing” to not only make him authentically who he is, but to live out the whole reason God created him in the first place. He’s that way for a reason.

Psalm 139:13-15 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Let’s help each other see our differences. Let’s appreciate them, acknowledge them, learn from them.
Let’s prosper and succeed, not in spite of them, but because of them.
Let’s realize that using the ways we are different is the only way we can glorify God in fulfilling His will for our lives.

After all, He’s made each of us unique for a reason and I love knowing that I’m the only me there is!

Question: What makes you YOU? What do you think God’s purpose was in creating you with the exact combination of characteristics that you have?

Fear

I have noticed lately that a lot of people seem to be running with fear.

Fear about the economy. Fear about their jobs. Fear about their bank accounts, their children’s choices, their relationships…

Even the weather (while it is a snowy, cold mess) seems to strike more fear in people’s hearts than it normally would due to people’s heightened emotions.

There is a blanket of fear covering this world like a dark and heavy mass. And that fear seems to be penetrating into the very core of people’s lives. It’s a fear that is occupying their thoughts and holding them back from even the simplest activities and commitments.

And I have a feeling that God is sad about it.

Yes, there is certainly some roughness in the world right now. But if we give into it, then we lose. God loses.

However, if we stand up in faith, we win and God wins.

I invite you to step out in faith with me…just for a minute…and dream of a world without fear.

Might it look like this?

If I have no fear about my own financial situation, trusting God to provide, then I will dig into my pockets and give to my fellow hurting man.

If I have no fear about the economy, believing that God has it all under control, I will go ahead and buy what it is that I can afford and continue to stimulate the economy in my own small way.

If I have no fear about my own gifts and talents, trusting God to bless me as I use what He has given me, then I might find that now is the perfect time to try something new that I’ve always wanted to do (start a new business, sell my craft items, write that book I’ve always dreamed of, start a not-for-profit that really works hard to serve others).

If I have no fear in my relationships, I will listen to God as He nudges me and I will act on those urges to encourage and uplift someone else that I sense is hurting.

If I have no fear, always trusting that God is leading me, I will follow the tug of God. I will listen to God and answer back with the action that He hopes for. I will be open to stepping onto the path that He has laid for me. I will search out His will and follow it. I will not need to be afraid because I will know that He is carrying me, holding me, wrapped around me…sometimes with a light touch, and sometimes with a tight bear-hug-of-a-squeeze, but always there waiting for me and with me. Always.

God doesn’t want us to be afraid. He doesn’t want us to back away or to back down from the path that He is pushing us toward simply because we are scared. He wants us to take the risk and to trust Him through it.

Isaiah 43:1-3
But now, this is what the LORD says—
he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

Consider your God-given purpose…do you know what it is? If not, I challenge you to really spend some time reflecting deeply about it in prayer. God has gifted you so that there is something specific that only you can do.

It could be something completely enormous and world-changing in one split second. Or it could be something more like mine: something simpler, recurring, not nearly as earth-shaking on the surface, but equally important.

But what if, because of all of the fear in the world right now, you start to buy in to being scared and you fail to live out that purpose.

You are letting yourself down.
More importantly, though, you are letting your God down.

What is standing in the way of you starting to live out your purpose right here, right now? What is holding you back?

Is it fear? Don't let fear hold you back! (Or busyness, or complacency, or doubt.)

When you run toward fear, what are you running from?

Helping others? Giving to church and charity? Using your talents, gifts, creativity? Lifting your voice? Living the dream that God placed in your heart? Living out the purpose that you were created for? Wow...What does that say to God?

Think about it....then decide that on your last day on this earth you won't say,
"I let fear get in the way of all I could have done and all I could have been".

Your greater purpose is waiting on you to stop being afraid!

Question: Are you living out your God-given purpose? Are you afraid? Of what? Why?