Purpose

These past few weeks have been some of the most diverse (most closely together) I've lived in a long while.  And that's the right verb: lived.  Because I don't feel like I've stopped.  A week of vacation, this weird kind of renewed energy, a week of a very tough grief, a few good projects (and a few still in the wings), and this week, Vacation Bible School.  Along with, of course, the basic everyday life that simply is - the visits, the chores, the dogs, the kids, the walks and the bike rides, the writing and the worship.  Yeah, you could say it's been an interesting hodgepodge of things.

In an odd way, though...it really hasn't.  There's been this theme kind of running through everything, and I'm not sure I have a good way to describe it.  Or even a bad way....  It's this low unspeakable rumble that's somehow synced with the rhythm of my heart and for all intents and purposes, let's call it the profound yet indefinable suspicion of purpose and indescribable blessing.  (PYISPIB for short?)

That's how it's felt.  Like every moment has somehow been something more than you would think just looking at the surface of it.  And how even in the difference of every day, there is something greater still that is all the same.  I've been energized, encouraged, stronger than my flesh would have told me, focused, and maybe a little intimicited - a mix of intimidated and excited.  Because there's a whisper going on, growing into that kind of knowing that infuses the spirit, and it is those two most intimidating words God can ever speak to us, followed by a Promise:

"Get ready. (the intimidation)  Because this is what I created you for. (Promise)"

Intimidating, because when you hear God speak into your life and you're so ready for Him to move through you, your gut reaction is to want to honor that.  To want to live up to what God has put in you.  Not because you have to deserve it or because it's your job to prove yourself, but because purpose is infused with love - and in that moment God shows you your purpose, you are overwhelmed with love and wanting to live it.

Intimidating, but energizing.  Energizing because...I guess it's the surprise of it.  In these moments, you're not really thinking about the grand scheme of things.  You've not got one ear to the heavens, questioning.  You're not trying to measure up, to be enough; you don't feel like you have to be anything in particular except open.  You're not hoping one way or another because it's just the moment.  I've been sinking myself into moments. And then there's this whisper: "This is it."  And it makes me stop for a second and think about where I'm at, what I'm doing, where my heart is.  And I find that my heart is present, engaged, fully right there and unbeknownst to me - in the most leisurely of times, in the toughest of times, in the heat of the day, under a cool breeze - I unspokenly feel like it's something.  Then God pokes my heart and says that it is, and I know He's right.  Even when it outwardly doesn't look like anything.  Then I'm stoked.  Because if this is what He's created me for, I will take it.  Right now.  Let's roll.

There is a difference between the good moments and the promise moments.  Between simple pleasure and divine purpose.  I'll admit this is something I have struggled with from time-to-time, having the good moments and trying to make more of them.  Holding them close and trying to work my life around them, set them up to define something, latching onto them as tightly as I could.  These past few weeks, it hasn't been that feeling.  I think it's the simple difference between empty and hungry.

When we're empty, we devour these moments and paint them in our minds so that we can relive them over and over and over again, seeking something that will stay with us.  Something that will remind us of something more.  We're so afraid of being empty that we're trying to fill ourselves up and we're not open to anything that lies deeper within a moment.  We just want something.

But when we're hungry....  Oh, when we're hungry, we take these moments and eat them up.  We taste every bit of purpose and promise baked into them.  Then we realize we wouldn't want this moment back.  We've surrendered to it and given ourselves into it for that sake of what it was, and we can't let ourselves spend the next day, week, year, reliving this because a day-old meal would not be the same.  But we want more moments like this.  We want more.  Ravenously.

That's where I'm at - loving these moments, hearing that whisper, feeling the roar, infused with purpose and passion and a little intimicitement.  Hungry, ready, wanting more....more moments like these, but not these moments again.  And I believe (and days passing by have shown) that this is how it's going to be.  All these little moments that seem like nothing but are somehow something, wrapped in my purpose and His promise.

Get ready, He says, and I can hardly believe it.  Because this is what I created you for.  And I'm speechless.  As much mercy, grace, honor, love, time, fellowship, art, beauty, holy as these kinds of days have shown...what could I say to this being every day except...you got me, Lord.  You got me.  I got nothing.

Over the next few days, I want to share with you some of these moments, some of these times of seeming nothing that may be something.  Times of discovery, prayer, purpose, whatever it's been.  Hoping that maybe you will find yourself hungry and hear that same whisper.  Get ready.  God created you for something, too.