Making Sense of Purpose

We often have goals for where we want to be in the next five years (lately, I've heard a lot about the "5-yr plan" wondering, "where's mine?"), but we can never really know where we will be in the next five years. I know that you know this, so stick with me here.

Lately, I have struggled to understand exactly what I am supposed to be doing with my life. I don't mean in five years, I mean right now. Anyone with me on this? I feel like an alien in the world I'm currently living, just waiting to feel acclimated to this life. I have so many questions like, am I where I am supposed to be in life right now? What's next? Where will I be in the next five years (or two, even)?

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, but here on campus it seems everyone is just on their one-track paths booking it toward the finish line, and here I am wandering aimlessly without a distinctive path. It's just dried-up desert land. If I scream, will I be heard?

I take comfort, I have to take comfort, in knowing that even my thoughts are heard, and that when I cry out, it doesn't fall on deaf ears, or even merely soil. I am heard, and even though I don't know where I'm going right now, there is a  plan set just for me, and I can't make the wrong decision.

I have this theory that even when we make the "wrong" decision, it's the right one. Sometimes taking the wrong path at first helps us see what we are really supposed to be doing in the long-run. When we experience failure, we learn what doesn't work, and in turn, what does. When we live in uncertainty, we learn to depend on God, and more deeply understand that we as humans know nothing and have no control over the long-term plans.

All we can do is continue to put one foot in front of the other, even if we are teetering like toddlers. If we fall, we'll get back up. If we go the wrong way, we'll find arms reaching out, waving us in another direction.

Here's a parallel for life from that example: Toddlers have very little, often no sense of danger. Parents are often seen running behind them, bent over with their arms out to guard them. When the little one comes to the top of a stairway, they have no clue that one misstep could send them toppling down the stairs, so they don't understand when their parents turn them in another direction. Like learning toddlers, we have no idea what danger the next step could bring. When we are turned in a different direction it's frustrating. But we have to recognize that we don't know what dangers the next step could have brought, and have faith that we're better off going whichever way we have been pointed, until the next re-direction.

This is how we can know our purpose. To continue taking everything in stride, working faithfully toward what we believe we are supposed to work for. If we are wrong, it will be made known in time, because our Father will always turn us back in the direction He wants us.

Keep working at what you're doing, and do it faithfully. It may seem insignificant now, it may be testing your patience, but stick with it and you will see the purpose of it all. It may take years, but if you're doing it, you have purpose.

Keep going. I will, too.