Where do I want to live? What type of career would best fit me? Who should I marry? The better we know ourselves, the easier it becomes to answer life's big questions.
We are all gifted in different areas of life. Living out our
purpose will require us to figure
out what gifts we have so that we can put them to use. The Carl Jung and Isabel Briggs Myers personality test is one way to
better understand your uniqueness
and figure out what areas you are gifted
in. I took the personality test a few weeks ago to see if there are any areas where I’m
gifted that I haven’t thought about. The test reaffirmed a
lot of things that I already knew about myself and my personality type. It was
also funny to see that so many of the things I’m passionate about aren’t really that “unique” after all, they are very
common interests for my personality type.
People with my personality type often become activists or
involved in politics. The test also showed me that careers where my personality
type is very successful are: Psychology and Counselling, Writing, Teaching, Early
Childhood Education, Healthcare, Social work, Law and Religious Leadership. If
you are interested in learning more about your own personality type, or want to
find out what type of careers you would do well in, you can take the test here:
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
It's very difficult to live a life of purpose unless we know what our gifts are. The purpose of this life is partly the same for all human-beings; to love God and love people. On the other hand, how we choose to serve God and serve other people will depend on what areas we are gifted in. God does not desire a person with very low empathy to be the one running the care ministry in the church for example. A person with low empathy won't be able to feel enough compassion for those who need help through the care ministry.
We are all gifted in very different ways but no gift is worth more than another in God's eyes. All different types of gifts were given to us by God for one purpose; to serve Him and serve other people. We aren't meant to use our gifts towards selfish ambition, but rather to help other people in this world. There is somebody out there in the world right now who is praying to God for help in an area where youare able to help. Don't waste your gift, put it to use!
When I was in the process of figuring out my purpose a couple of years ago I found it helpful to read books about purpose. One of the more obvious things we need to figure out what our gifts are is a list of all the things we are good at. I find it helpful to write them all down. Another tip that I learned from reading books about purpose was to ask yourself the question: "What makes me righteously angry?" There are many different types of injustice in our world but we will know what we are meant to change when it makes us really angry. I always get really upset when I see children who are suffering at the hands of their parents or because of our broken society. Kids in poverty and kids who have been abused is one of my people groups that I want to spend my life serving. I also get very upset when I see any type of modern day slavery in our society; human trafficking, the lack of fair trade etc. Helping children get a better life and fighting modern day slavery are two of my greatest passions.
Another way we can know what God wants us to do with our lives is by taking a Spiritual Gifts Test. We all have certain gifts that we are born with (natural gifts) and then we also have spiritual gifts. Our spiritual gifts are given to us by the Holy Spirit and the more we are filled with the spirit the more evident they become in our lives. Some examples of different spiritual gifts are: mercy, pastoring, teaching, wisdom, giving, healing, hospitality, leadership, miracles, evangelism, administration and service. Once I found out what my spiritual gifts are it became easier to see how I can help others by using both my natural gifts and spiritual gifts.
One of my top spiritual gifts is mercy. The gift of Mercy is "the divine strength or ability to feel empathy and to care for those who are hurting in any way." The gift of mercy is very helpful when I work with serving children in poverty for example. God will equip each one of us for entirely different jobs in this life but each person has been given a set of both natural gifts and spiritual gifts that God is expecting us to put to use.
Pastor Charlotte Gambill from Life Church in the United Kingdom teaches a sermon about God's house, the church. Many of us can sometimes find ourselves spiritually homeless, we are lost and drifting around in life. Sometimes we are lost because we don't know that God even exists but other times we are drifting because we have a consumer attitude towards the church. We come to church with a check list and if the church doesn't live up to all our expectations on it we will move on to another church. We might stay in one church for awhile but when we start to disagree on something with other people within the church we quit and move on. We are looking for a perfect church and we will never find it, just like we will never find a perfect person to marry. God's house, the church, is filled with imperfect broken people seeking God so it's always going to be an imperfect place.
I sometimes hear people say "I'm a Christian but I don't need a church, other Christians annoy me so I don't want to go to church." The problem with us deciding to love God but to avoid his people is that one of God's main commands for us is to love each other. God isn't calling us to love only those who agree with us on everything, who have the same hobbies as us and have the same priorities in life.
It is difficult to love people who are different than us. We are drawn to people who are exactly like us because loving them takes less effort. Loving people who are different than us takes effort, maturity and commitment. We are always tempted to quit a romantic relationship when it gets difficult rather than to stay and figure things out, the same way we can be tempted to quit church every time we disagree with others on something or feel like the church isn't living up to all our personal preferences.
Sometimes God calls us to move, to leave a relationship or a church and go somewhere else, but often he calls us to stay. It is very tempting to quit when life gets uncomfortable. Staying planted in one place can be one of the most difficult things in life but it's also one of the things that will grow us the most. There are some lessons that can not be learned any other way. There are also gifts that God wants to bless us with that he can't send us before we have set our roots down in a church. God knows that without the support, encouragement and wisdom from the church we won't be able to use the gifts well. We were built for community and on our own we can only grow so much. God chose people to be his hands and feet on Earth, we will not flourish in isolation.
God's house is the church and it can become the place where we belong, a place where we learn, get help, advise and wisdom, but if we keep looking for the perfect church we will never find it. God's aim is to transform our hard hearts and to make us more and more like Jesus, this will definitely be an uncomfortable ride at times. Life outside of our comfort zones can be difficult, scary and very inconvenient at times, but those who decide to stay planted will experience a growth that they would not have been able to attain any other way.
Christine Caine talks about The A21 Campaign in this video, a non-profit organization that she and her husband Nick founded. When Christine found out about the great number of humans that are being trafficked around the world today she felt called to do something about the problem. Today The A21 Campaign exists to free women and girls who are stuck in sex slavery, to help the girls recover from their trauma and to bring the criminals to justice. If you want to learn more about human trafficking and The A21 Campaign you can find the website here: http://www.a21.org
I love getting inspired by people who have found their calling in life and acted on it. We are all equipped for and passionate about entirely different things but we were all created to make a difference, to put our gifts to use towards a positive change in this world. I like the quote by Mother Teresa:
"I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things."
Mother Teresa
Personal development are one of my biggest interests, as you can probably tell if you have been reading this blog for awhile. It excites me to hear stories about people who have overcome great obstacles in their lives and found healing from a very painful past. Every life on this Earth will include both joy and pain so I find it very encouraging to learn from people who have been through both.
One of the most encouraging things about being human is that we can choose what kind of life we want to live. We don't have to stay the way we are, we can grow and develop every year if we are willing, and live to see change we never even thought was possible. There are many different ways we can grow ourselves every year, one of my personal favorites is reading books. I seldom read fiction these days, I love reading Christian books and psychology books because they help me grow the most as a person.
Every year I read 1-2 books that end up changing my life forever and that alters the way I see the whole world. A couple of years ago I read "Drunk tank pink" by Adam Alter, a psychology book about how our environment shapes our thoughts and actions. This book totally changed how I view the world around me. This year one of the books that has changed my life the most is "Restless" by Jennie Allen.
"Restless" is a book about figuring out the purpose of your life and seeing how your gifts, passions, places and relationships aren't random but deliberate and meaningful. Even the suffering we have experienced in life plays a part in our life purpose. Jennie Allen explains that where we have experienced the greatest suffering in our lives might just be the place where we are the most passionate to create a positive change in this world. If you have gotten tired of living a life without a clear direction this book will help you see your whole life from a new angle and figure out what you were placed here on Earth to do.
Today we started the study called "Restless" by Jennie Allen at our Women Connect group at church. The goal of this study is to help each woman answer the question: "What's God's call on my life? We have all gone through different painful experiences in life, we live in different places and we are surrounded by different people. Each one of us have unique gifts and passions.
When we weave all these things together; our gifts, suffering, place, people and passions, we will discover that within all that lays a purpose. It is not a coincidence that we are in the exact place or stage in life where we are right now. God is inviting each one of us to be a part of his plan to restore this broken world.
Sometimes
when we look at ourselves we feel bad about ourselves because we zoom in on all
the things we lack. Most of us can easily make up a long list of things we are not
good at. It’s easy to feel disappointed, insecure or jealous of others
when you are staring at what you lack and then comparing yourself to others who
have that particular skill or thing you lack. We often base our self-worth on
how well we measure up to the culture’s standard of success and on how well we
are doing in comparison to others in our inner circle. God on the other hand,
views us in an entirely different way.
When we beat
ourselves up for what we are bad at it’s like we would complain about how bad
fish are at living on land. God didn’t create fish to live on land, he created
them to live in water and that is where they will thrive, on land they will
become weak and eventually die. Some of us are struggling and
draging our feet through life, but God didn’t create us to go through life
like that. God created each one of us for a particular purpose, but we are
never going to find that purpose if we keep focusing on what we don’t
have.
Once we
change our outlook on life and how we view ourselves we will discover that the mix of our personality, life experiences (both
good and bad), our hearth’s desires and abilities is exactly what God wants to
use in this world. Step one on the journey is to stop beating ourselves up for
what we can’t do or feel jealous of other people’s skills. God
has given every single person on this Earth a unique set of abilities, gifts
and opportunities to play an important part in His plan to restore this
broken world.
I took a
course at my church this fall called “SHAPE- discover how God designed you to
serve Him.” The course helped me discover my spiritual gifts, abilities,
personality, experience and heart’s desires through different tests and
discussions we were having in small groups. It was an exciting course to
take because what I’ve been sensing that God has been calling me towards was confirmed through this course. One area that
God is specifically calling me to serve him in during this short
life is children in poverty.
My heart
aches for children in poverty and suffering and I have a strong desire to help in this area. My abilities and personality also match well with
serving God through caring for children in poverty. It has also become clear to me that my past experiences (both good and bad) have helped
prepare me to help children in poverty and suffering. As I did the Spiritual
Gifts-test I found out that one of my spiritual gifts is “Giving”. Giving
goes well together with serving children in poverty since this
will require me to giveaway a lot of my time, money and focus to be able to help
the kids effectively.
I
think that it’s exciting to know that we were all created to do good works, which
God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). All we need to do is
figure out what those “works” are. Few people will figure out
the purpose God has for their lives in one day. I believe that once we start thinking and praying about our purpose God
will start revealing to us, piece by piece, what we were meant to do all along.
It took me about three years to figure out what God’s plan was for my life, and
it’s not like I have all the puzzle pieces today either, but today I’m starting
to notice a pattern in my life that points in a certain direction. I now understand
things I didn’t understand before and I can see how God used certain places,
people and opportunities to bring me closer and closer to the purpose He had
for me all along.
As I
stand on the threshold of stepping into God’s call on my life I’m more excited
about life and the future than ever before. I can’t wait to get to put
my personal gifts and abilities to work in an area that I was designed by God
to serve Him in. I feel passion, energy and excitement when I think of this great opportunity to create a lasting
positive impact on the world. That’s
the kind of stuff that makes me want to jump out of bed each morning! Following
God’s call on your life (once you’ve figured out what it is) isn’t necessarily
going to be an easy life, but it’s definitely going to be the most fulfilling,
passionate and meaningful life you could ever live.
You often hear people say I don’t believe in God because if
there was a good God up there in heaven looking down on us he wouldn’t allow so
much pain. This way of thinking makes sense in a way, but when I think of God
as our Father in heaven it helps me understand God’s plan better. God created the earth and everything was good, then he
created us and the trouble started. This scenario makes me think of how most
couples have a pretty nice life together, until they have kids, then the
troubles start. Just kidding! J
Although, it does help to think about how we relate to our
own kids when they misbehave to better understand how God relates to us. When
our kids get themselves in trouble what do we do? Do we clean up all their
messes for them and let them get away with bad behavior? No we do not, or at
least if we are good parents we don’t clean up all our children’s messes. We
tell them to clean up their own messes, under our guidance and supervision of
course. We don’t abandon them in their troubles, but we don’t do the work for
them either, because we know that they need to deal with the mess themselves to
be able to learn from their mistakes.
I believe God relates to us in the same way, when we get
ourselves in trouble he wants us to figure things out, but he will
never leave us alone in our struggles. God will always be by our side to
strengthen us when we are weak and to guide us when we are lost. If we come to
Him with our problems he will always offer us help, but he won’t do the work
for us, because he too wants us to learn something from our mistakes and grow
into better people than we were before.
It’s tempting to blame God for everything that is wrong in
our world but when we think about the fact that God has created seven billion
solutions for the problems in this world (us) then can we really put the blame
on him? God has done his part, he has created each one of us with one or many
gifts and skills. We are all equipped to “do something” in this world, but we
choose if we are going to put these gifts to use or not.
I can choose
to sit back and complain about everything that is wrong or I can turn my focus
towards the particular task that God has created me for.Each one of us is the solution for some
particular problem in this world, but as long as we choose to stand still and
do nothing not much will change will it? It’s time for us to do something! J
Christmas is the season of ultimate joy and love. I experience so much joy this time of year, joy that comes in many different forms. I'm a very visual person so I love walking around our neighborhood enjoying the beautiful snowy landscapes and people's Christmas decorations. Thank you neighbors for giving me joy through your decorations! :)
I also love that Christmas is a season of generosity. I get so much joy from picking out gifts for friends and family, seeing their reactions when they open their gifts and joking with them about how I'm totally okay if they want to regift what I got for them.
Apparently new research has shown that people who spend their money on others rather than on themselves end up happier. It's exciting to me every time I see new research pointing to the same facts that has been known by wise people for generations. A generous life makes both us and others happier. If we choose to be selfless rather than self-centered its a win-win for everybody in the world, and what better time is there to start this new lifestyle than at Christmas time? :)
