LIFE ON PURPOSE

One of the things I love about having an intimate relationship with God is the way He talks to us. Recently He has been giving me a very direct message surrounding: life on purpose and/or living on purpose. It has come at me in at least three very clear and distinct ways over the last week: in a book a friend suggested, in a Saturday morning meeting and in a recent worship service.

This morning in my time of prayer and meditation I had to face the fact that so much of my living on purpose and according to the things that really make me happy - I simply gave up on. I started to think about some of the goals that I wrote in my high school memory book and I how I would envision my home adorned with art pieces vibrant with color and who speak to who I am. Somewhere along the way, I gave up on seeking out the things in people that wonderfully and positively challenge me and I started to allow to many "just anybodies" in. While I have also learned to detox people, behaviors and insecurities; I was amazed in those quiet moments this morning about the amount of intrinsic joy and energy I had lost to the matters pre-detoxification.

I had to admit to myself, that I am still the woman who wants to have four sons frolicking around her, as I read books on a private beach. I am still the woman who wants to pick up and travel to wherever my imagination can take me on a whim. I am still the woman who envisions a house with a wraparound porch and Southern summertime gatherings of artists, intellectuals and street corner philosophers all sipping delightful elixirs as we mingle; and the kids take over the yard. I am still the woman who wants to be surrounded and poured into by women of powerful integrity who can get deep yet can be real; and at it each gathering we pour into another woman who needs that assurance and compassion. That is life on purpose for me.

So I have decided that before my head hits the pillow tonight and my nine year old son bear hugs me into a thirty minute conversation that will surely prolong his bed time I am going to do something major to start life my life on purpose anew. I am going to re-script my life completely and purposely according to those things that God implanted in me in His initial thought of me. As I re-write that script, I am doing so from a mindset that God can and will redeem not only the time, but the energy loss to those things that are me that left me. Honestly, I can not really put a finger on when they left, how they left or why they did - but they have often resurfaced in my spirit and brought tears to my eyes as though they were mourning for me. Isn't that something? Your true spirit will mourn losing you when all it wants to do is live on purpose through you.

What does your life on purpose look like? Today, not scribble something quickly in your journal, but really think about what your purposed life designed by The Spirit and the things of your spirit really looks like? Write your way back to it. This is not about goals or to dos, no, this is about waking up every day and deciding that you have a purpose and every bit of your character, your decisions, your thoughts and your focus on that purpose should bring you joy. I am excited about having life on purpose - I pray you are as well.

LISTEN - BEFORE YOU NEED A RECOVERY PLAN

My life yelled at me recently. Baby!!! It yelled in a loud, distinct and unmistakable manner. It said and it is saying - there is failure before greatness, there are valleys before greatness, there are problems before greatness, and in every measure of anticipated and expected success there are measures of well - hell - to walk through. Can I let you in on a little secret? My life, in hindsight, probably had been whispering the things it started yelling - but I'm a little hard of hearing in my left ear and I am prone to being stubborn. My mother will tell you that of her three children, I am the most stubborn. Here is the thing - life has no respect of stubbornness. If I were a charismatic Baptist preacher, I would say - "oh y'all don't hear me. I said life has no respect of stubbornness."



Since it does not, life and God will wait you out until they get tired of you. I mean really, God owns time and life, you can not wait Him out. I admit I have tried. Silly, silly me. When my life yelled and I was forced to listen, I realized I had some things that needed to be worked out. There were some things attached to the way and the reasons I do/did things that I had not recognized. In example, the majority of my financial decisions were made from a place of desperation; therefore my finances have always hit crisis mode several times during the year. Life screamed it and I am now dealing with the chastisement of not handling that reality while it was yet a whisper. I began to speak a powerful dream over myself, not realizing that dreams are often manifested through major battles; yet that does not mean the dream is deferred or denied. Life screamed it and I realized I should have paid attention to the warnings to be quiet now or speak now that would stir in my spirit.


When life gets to the point that it has to scream at you or to you, you will find that it will also tell you to get a recovery plan. You will find yourself like major financial institutions and the auto industry - looking for a bailout. Guess what it may not come raining down from heaven and it may not be a plausible solution that people around you will help you out with. You may just have to bail yourself out and do some things to enter into a new level of humility. Your life may effectively tell you that a bail out plan to make you an excellent manager of every area of your life is now necessary and urgent.


If you could see me now you would see my hand is raised for I am so there. While the God I serve is so able to send one person into my life to address the pressing need for emergency money - He has not. While money does answer all things, what needs answering for me is not the things that need money but the actions and mindsets that created the need. I am not being favored with cash, but favored with understanding. While the God I love is more than able to speak healing into my body - He has not. By His stripes I am surely healed and am more healed when I recognize that this temple was given to me for a reason and what I experience in it is for a bigger purpose. Since it is, I am being favored with a new respect for it and a renewed desire to live.


Life said, "Ms. Thing get a bailout plan so that you can get exceedingly, abundantly, above all you can ask for." That means making some decisions that bring tears to my eyes. That means having and working through brief moments of feeling like a failure. That means letting go of and returning some material things that no longer fit. That means being uncomfortable in my lifestyle in order to become comfortable in my life - before it yells at me again.


Take a look at your life areas: money, health, family, spirit, professional/ business; does your life need a bailout plan? Is your life headed towards needing a bailout plan? Are you missing the whispers and inviting life to YELL? In every significant area of your life write one distinct vision and one pivotal question - is my life following my vision in this area? If not, a life bailout plan is in order. What goes into your bailout plan depends on your vision, therefore discuss it with you only or with one person who knows your sincere spirit and will be honest with you. This plan is about what your life is showing you and not what others think about what you should do in your life - being mindful of that is vital. In a country where large corporate bailouts are becoming as normal as pulling through a fast food drive thru - now is the perfect time to re-order a slice of life that is effective, feasible and divinely-blessed. Grab a shovel and bail out, because when life yells it is deafening.


E. Claudette Freeman,
Arise, Write, Release