For the last two years our daughter (currently 5) has been telling us that she wants to be a teacher when she grows up. This hasn’t surprised us. She absolutely loves school and learning and, as young as she is, already seems to have a heart for other children. She likes to hear about their everyday lives, learn their personal favorites, and seems to generally care. We also have quite a few teachers in the family, so she has great exposure to the idea of teaching others. My mom was an educator for more than 35 years, my sister-in-law is an elementary school teacher, I have multiple cousins who are teachers, and her dad is a pastor.
Of course, we wouldn’t be surprised if she changes her mind, maybe multiple times, before the time comes for her to embark on a career path. But last week the idea of her wanting to be a teacher did come up once again. While driving home from school she randomly asked “Momma, does God want me to be a teacher?” What a question. And a question I unfortunately have no way of truly answering.
Here I have a small child, innocently waiting for an answer to what she doesn’t realize is a very big, very loaded question. Does God want her to be a teacher? Is that meant to be one of her greater purposes in life? My simple answer is that I can’t answer that. How could I? I’m not the one who created her. Her purpose here on earth is different from mine, and her sibling’s, and her father’s, and her classmates’, and her hairdresser’s, and the cashier at the grocery store. The reasons God has placed each of us here, at this time, in this place, is for each of us alone.
Taking a Look at Greater Purpose
What makes this trickier is the fact that our purposes aren’t always going be made completely obvious to us. If we were meant to know the answer to every single question we had about our own lives and the world around us, then what would the point be? How would we learn if we already knew what we were meant to do and experience each day?
I can tell you that I don’t believe I have just one purpose. I don’t believe any of us do. God’s love for his children is so infinite and His miracles are so unimaginably complex and diverse. I could never assume that each of us has only one purpose, only one reason why we’re here. For myself, I find purpose in being a wife to my husband, a mother to the children God has blessed me with, a daughter to my parents, a sister to my brother and sisters-in-law, an aunt to my nephews, a mentor for students, a friend, a writer, a prayer warrior, and the list goes on and on.
Let’s not sell ourselves short by believing that we are only here for one reason, when really we are all here for more reasons than we could possibly imagine or even realize. Yes, maybe you do have a greater purpose to be a parent, or a teacher, or a scientist, or an entrepreneur, etc. But why stop there? Why only focus on the greater purpose when we offer so much purpose every day?
Finding Purpose in Your Everyday
Honestly, I think we could back up and focus on the question “Did God put me here?”. We could just stop right there because that’s the big question, isn’t it? If you’re a believer, if you don’t just suppose that you and everything around you landed here by accident, then the answer must be “Yes, He did.”.
No matter the path, no matter the greater purpose, God created you and there is meaning and purpose in that alone. He chose to put you here right now in this very second. That fact alone proves that you are not by accident, therefore nothing you do is by accident either. Because we have purpose in our everyday lives. We have purpose in the mundane, those everyday acts that can, in fact, feel completely non-purposeful.
We can get so wrapped up in the idea of our greater purpose that we sometimes overlook our everyday purpose of just existing and what an incredible gift that is to us and those around us. The things you share, the people you interact with, the meals you prepare, the floors you clean, the work you do all have meaning. If you don’t believe that then just think of who may be affected if you weren’t here to share, interact, prepare meals, clean floors, and do your honest work.
It’s Okay to Not Know the Answer
Going back to my original story, my answer to my daughter was something along the lines of, “I don’t know if God wants you to be a teacher. He clearly has made teaching something that you are interested in, so we just need to continue talking to Him about it. Whatever it is He wants you to do, I know you’re going to be wonderful at it.” She smiled big then immediately followed up by telling me that she saw an eagle (it was a crow) and asking for cheese crackers. Sound pretty normal to anyone else?
Trying to both live and lead with blind faith can be scary. But waking up and getting out of bed each day is just that, a step of faith, as it’s meant to be. We aren’t meant to know it all. We are meant to come to God with our questions, concerns, fears, joys, all of it.
This world is imperfect. We do and will constantly live with questions, and I am here to tell you that that’s okay. We can honor our purpose and God by challenging ourselves to live in Christ today, no matter what it brings, knowing that every part of your life is purposeful. If it weren’t, you wouldn’t be here.
For me, I try to continue to ask Him to show me my purposes for the day. Each step and task, when lead by Him, has purpose that moves us toward completing his good works and fulfilling our own wants and needs. That is something that I wish for all of us!
Thank you, friends. I wish you joy!
