Living with Purpose

I just did the most freeing exercise. A lot of you are going to read this and wonder where I've been the past ten years, but I've never really written out a purpose statement for my life. I'm going through a book with the girls here at Jackson Hole, Calm My Anxious Heart, and she suggested writing one to free our hearts from the anxiety of either feeling like we don't have a purpose or from the feeling that we have too many purposes.

So I said, "Why not?" (Actually first I thought, "Haven't I done that already?" and I then realized that, like most things I count as elementary, I have skipped over them somehow. Pride!)

I have to admit that I got halfway through writing out my purpose in life before I realized that someone has already written out my purpose. My days have already been ordained for me. So, I laughed at myself for a minute and then humbled myself in prayer before the Lord, admitted to what a fool I was to think I could write my own purpose, and asked Him if He would give me a little more clarity in what He has dreamed up for me. How could I live with a little more intention? What are some fences I could put up to walk a more focused path?

I came up with what's below, but I hope to come back to it every year and talk it over with Jesus. I'm tired of living day to day not knowing exactly what it is that I'm doing! I already feel so free to live without anxiety... I hope, if you haven't done something similar already, that you would take an afternoon to do the same.