I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well Psalms 139:14 NKJV.
There is a purpose for every human that has ever walked this earth. I grew up in a house that was crafted primarily by my grandfather. Everything from the rough-hewn beams in the living room to lathed banisters on the stairs and the hand-made kitchen cabinets were made or influenced by my grandfather’s hands. The impact of growing up in a house that was made by an artisan was illustrated to me recently and has me thinking about the power of following one’s purpose in life.
Yesterday I received the news that my grandmother had passed away after a battle with dementia. I had not seen or talked to my grandmother or anyone else from my family in many years, largely due to the choices that I have made. Reflecting on those choices and the people and events that led me to them and talking to my Mom and Sister led me to think back to the house I grew up in. I have many memories of being in that house, and that house has stood out in my memory as a standard by which I could measure any other building I enter.
I use to think that the house was just better because it was old. “They don’t make them like they use to,” is the phrase that comes to mind. But as the flood of memories has washed over me over the last two days, as they always do when you are grieving, something different has stood out to me, my grandfather’s passion. I remember watching my grandfather work in his garage, turning raw wood into beautiful and functional things. My grandfather could see the finished product and make angles and lengths line up in ways that fascinated me as a growing boy. There were many things that I remember my grandfather doing that he did out of duty or out of love for his family, but when he was creating things, that is when he seemed more alive.
When I look back over my life to date, My grandfather’s passion for creation and passion for doing a job correctly the first time greatly impacted who I am today and the passions that I have. When God put me on this planet, He didn’t just birth me into a random family and ignore me; He put me here to have an impact. That passion for creation that my Grandfather instilled in me, amplified by my hyper detail-oriented, and introverted personality, has given me tools to have a positive impact on those God brings into my life.
After reading all of this, you may be led to believe that I know exactly why I am here and that I am pursuing it with passion. To date, that has not been how I have lived my life. It is important to note when looking for your purpose that you have an enemy. Many places in scripture talk about the devil being a deceiver, one that wants to destroy you, and as one that can appear as an angel of light. In my short life, I have found that most of the deceptions that have knocked me off track and kept me from living the joy-filled life that God has planned for me fall into two categories: fear of failure and a false passion. I want to share the lessons that God has been teaching me in the hope that you can have a head start on the journey that I have walked.
Failure, the tool of learning
Fear is one of the first and most powerful emotions that we feel as children. It is a self-preservation mechanism that helps us stay alive in dangerous situations. If you are anything like me, you have learned to be afraid of failing somewhere along the line. I learned it in school. If I could not pass the test, there were consequences that seemed dire at the time. That was not always the case, though. As I was too young to remember, you would have to ask my Mom, but I am quite certain that when I was learning to walk, I didn’t fall once and never try to walk again. The same could be said about riding a bike or learning to shoot a bow. I remember being fiercely competitive with my older brother despite him being faster and better at almost everything than I was when we were kids.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV.
Whatever the cause, I have learned to be afraid of failure. This fear has often paralyzed me from exploring new business opportunities, pursuing new relationships, or learning new skills. This fear of danger that God gave us to protect us from harm can be warped into something that leaves us living a life that feels unfulfilled and full of regret. The good news is that your creator gave you a tool to fight this fear. That tool is faith. It is not blind faith, but a faith built on the building block of his provision in your life. I can look back on my life and see a plethora of times that God has guided me through challenges, taught me things that I needed to know, and protected me from those that wanted to do me harm. Through reading scripture, I also know that God has a plan and a purpose for me and that he has given me the passions that I have to bring him glory. Knowing all of this, it is no longer logical to act in fear.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jerimiah 29:11 NKJV.
As I alluded to earlier in my example of learning to walk, the other thing to realize is that failure is a teaching tool. When a child learns to walk, they repeatedly fail until they learn how to balance and move their muscles in a way that allows them to walk. When we set out to pursue the passions that God has given us, we will fail, but instead of being afraid of failure, we should welcome failure, as we would welcome an old friend, learn the lesson that the failure is trying to teach us, and press forward towards the calling God, has for us. However, just as a child with an older sibling tend to learn to walk faster by watching their older sibling, we too can learn lessons from observing others’ failures and successes instead of going through all of the failures ourselves.
A False Passion
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. John 10:10 NKJV
If there is one thing that has robbed me of joy in my life more than anything else, it is pursuing false passions. In 2 Corinthians 11:3, the author talks about not being deceived as Eve was deceived. So how was eve deceived? In Genesis 3:1, the devil tempts Eve by saying, “Has God really said…?” The devil then twists God’s words enough to convince Eve to give up paradise for a hollow promise of satisfaction. I have watched the Devil do this same thing in my life and in the lives of my friends, and I have fallen for it more times than I can count.
One of the talents that God has given me is a mind that thinks about things systematically. For as long as I can remember, I have always enjoyed finding better, faster, or more automated ways of doing a task. This is especially true if it is a task that I don’t like doing. Sadly many of the ideas that I have come up with would take lots of money and months, if not years, to implement. This is where false passion can easily creep in. In a video game, I can identify a problem in a few hours and solve it in a fraction of the time that I could figure out a similar problem in real life. I then get rewarded with lights and sounds that trick my brain into believing that I have accomplished something. The reality of the situation is that I haven’t actually done anything that impacts the real world or anything that brings glory to my creator.
This is just one example of a false passion that the Devil can use to rob us of our joy. The book of Ecclesiastes talks at length on this subject. I have watched myself, my friends, and my family members chasing all sorts of artificial things that they are convinced will satisfy them. Instead, these pursuits leave an empty feeling that often motivates them to pursue these empty passions all the more passionately. These empty passions include drugs, extra-marital relationships, hobbies taken to extremes, taking on too much at work, “helping” people that turns into enabling bad behavior. These things are often a version of a God-given passion that is warped into something easier to pursue and destructive to everyone involved.
So how do we identify the deception of false passion? The illustration is often used that a bank teller does not identify forgeries by studying forgeries; they identify forgeries by handling the real this so often the forgery stands out. The same is true with the deceptions of the devil. If you are in the scriptures daily and praying consistently, the Lord will illuminate the deceptions in your life. The temptations of the devil always distract us from the primary purpose we are here for, to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” Matthew 22:37-39. If we are tempted to do anything that will violate these principles, it is automatically disqualified. Some question you can ask yourself to help identify the deceptions in your life is: what are the fruits of this pursuit? Do your fellow humans benefit from this pursuit? Is God glorified by your pursuit? If the answers to these questions are in line with the truths in scripture, you may be a step closer to finding the calling God has placed on your life.