Pursuing Purpose – My Top 3 Lessons
Welcome back to my blog! I hope you enjoy this month’s blog where I will be sharing my top 3 lessons that I have learnt on this great journey of discovering and pursuing my God given purpose.
LESSON 1 - “God calls the unqualified and he does the qualifying!”
God told me everything that I had been through would be used to help many people and that I was specifically called to help women. I won’t lie, I was thinking ....God? I think you have the wrong person? How? Who am I though, I am no one? I just did not feel adequate. I had to learn that it wasn’t about me or whether I felt adequate or not, 2 Corinthians 3:5 says “Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.” If we were already qualified to fulfill our purpose we wouldn’t need God’s help, just be available for God’s use and always remember God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, he will get the glory!
LESSON 2 –Humility vs. Pride – “Be careful. Pride comes before a fall.”
Once God gave me insight to what my purpose was I was excited and began anticipating when it would happen but what I lacked was the understanding that I had to be processed before I began seeing anything come to pass . I went from graduating with a 2:1 , to working as a receptionist in Fitness First , to becoming a cleaner . There is nothing wrong with doing these jobs but in my mind I thought ...but God the vision you gave me seemed so much bigger??? I was a cleaner for one year , cleaning small flats to four level houses on my own , scrubbing toilets ,floors , doing stacks of ironing and often being treated like I was inferior and uneducated and it was physically exhausting . I struggled with telling people that I was a cleaner and felt embarrassed that I had graduated and had such big dreams but all I was doing was cleaning houses , my pride was real . The cleaning started to go downhill as jobs were not as consistent as I needed them to be and I had been applying for agency work and everything kept falling through. I was in bank arrears and had to sell my car because I couldn’t pay off the insurance and sometimes couldn’t even afford public transport, most of my clothes were damaged and stained from cleaning products but I had to still wear them. But the lesson I learnt was humility, I had to be humbled and develop my trust and hope in God so that I would never become prideful, fall into destruction and forget God when the vision began to come to pass . It also developed my character and stopped me idolising material things and helped me to appreciate things more when I could afford them again. I also learnt integrity and how to be faithful with little and see any job that I did as me working as onto the lord which gave me more motivation to work hard regardless of my job title .
LESSON 3 – “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
Pursuing my purpose meant leaving my comfort zone and taking a huge leap of faith and my ow my was my faith tested . In 2016 right up until the end was a tough financial year , I was basically at the lowest I had ever really been so when I finally got a well paid job to pay for my business equipment and materials I was happy . But within 5 months God told me it was time to leave. I was at huge cross roads. Do I stay in my job because I can guarantee I will have financial security or do I leave and pursue my purpose? Now the opposite of faith is doubt and that’s what I began to do...doubt , I had fear that I would end up broke and in debt again because it just sounded crazy ...God was telling me to leave my job to run a project for young girls in a school for free two hours a week with no other job ...I mean ...really ? But I had to reflect back to lesson two ....I was stripped of things in order to learn to trust and solely depend on God and held onto Philippians 4:19 “But my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” and Hebrews 13:5 “Never will I leave you , never will I forsake you” . God made a way each month and even now as I am self-employed which means I have no choice but to have faith , God has provided every single month without fail!!! Trust that God is not a man that should lie ....walk by faith , don’t settle for comfort and a false sense of security , there are people that need what you have inside of you . The journey might look crazy but “trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understandings”Proverbs 3:5 ! Walk by faith and not by sight ...you will be pleasantly surprised.
So there you have it, my top 3 lessons that I have learnt along the journey of pursuing my purpose . I have learnt so much and I know I will learn even more as the years go by . I want to take this time to honor God’s faithfulness and promises , he is truly awesome ! Chose not to sit back because of fear, God’s will and purpose for your life is far bigger than anything you could think of . Sometimes the road gets rough, uncomfortable and can feel uncertain, trust me I really know but God will continue to lead you. Be comforted in knowing that "he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" -Philippians 1:6 .
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