Finding purpose in my days

 My Purpose

As our children have become busy with jobs, interests and activities, and have left for college,  I have found myself with time on my hands.  I need to know God’s purpose for my life, so I can find the best way to fill my days.

God’s answer to my cry: “To glorify Me.”

But how?  God’s answer was “by giving my very best to the task at hand and to quit worrying about a year from now, a week from now, or even an hour from now.”  So I will do the laundry, the grocery shopping, the cooking and cleaning, the planning and the homeschooling to the glory of God. In Taking Up Your Cross, Tricia McCary Rhodes,  answered my heart’s cry in a way I didn’t expect.

“The reason we don’t come to God when we’re busy, or tired, or
emotionally distraught is because we believe we come to give
instead of to get.  We see quiet times as our Christian responsibility
and therefore we must do them when we are strong and in good
spiritual condition.  But God doesn’t call us to Himself for what we
might bring, but that we might know the delight of finding our
deepest needs met in all that He is.  What really glorifies Him are
empty, needy people being filled and made whole by His
goodness.”

“When the driving passion of our life is to find joy and delight in the
pursuit of God’s glory, then we have discovered our reason for being. “

I believe part of glorifying God is showing others His glory.  Again, I have struggled with how to do that.  When Moses had been in God’s presence his face shone so brightly that the Israelites were frightened and he had to veil his face.  I think as we spend more time in God’s presence, His glory will overflow from our lives onto those around us.

I guess I will keep pursuing God and wait for Him to show me what to do next.

(Tricia’s website has a lot of articles and devotional materials http://www.soulatrest.com/index.html)

(Originally written July 3, 2008, but I am struggling with this again as I work myself out of a job.)