Combatting Anxiety: A Word from Christian Women
Grab your latte & let's chat purpose. Listen In On Spotify | Pocket Casts | Anchor | Apple Podcasts season 2, Episode 11 Combatting Anxiety: A Word from Christian Women On this episode, Megan and her sister Makenzy talk about a struggle they both...
The Vitality of Intentionality
I wholeheartedly believe that intentionality is one of the most vital aspects of our lives as believers.
It is defined as being deliberate or purposive (how fitting for a blog about purpose). Intentionality knows its goal and takes steps to get wherever it’s headed.
I am going to be sharing about intentionality in relationships, first with Jesus, then with others.
You have probably heard the saying a million times or more, “relationship over religion” and regardless of how you grew up, “relationship is a two-way street.” It may sound cliché or repetitive, but it’s oh so true.
Intentionality is required in our walk with the Lord.
How To Use Your Talents and Gifts
Be careful not to bury the gifts and talents God has entrusted you with. We must invest and increase. This is such a major factor of living purposefully.
Let’s let this VITAL truth and way of life sink into our hearts, minds and lives.
1. Talents and gifts are given by GRACE. The gifts we have are just that… a GIFT. They are not of us but given to us. They are not only gifts but gifts from God. This truth really brings perspective on how we should treat talents and gifts and use them. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a parable of a man who goes on a journey and gives, entrusts his servants, with his property. The story goes and we see that the three different servants receive different amounts of money and they all do different things with those amounts. Two multiple it and one wastes it. A striking aspect to be noted for this first point of grace is that this master entrusts his land to his servants. There is nothing earned about this. It is GRACE on grace. It’s an accurate representation of God entrusting HIS gifts to us – not our land, not our talents, not our gifts but His. In Romans 12:6, Paul says that our gifts are given according to the “grace given to us.” Then in 1 Peter 4:10 that we ought to use the gifts to serve as “good stewards of God’s varied grace.”
Living Purposefully Playlist
Music is SUCH a powerful tool.
It can uplift or help us really feel our sorrow. It can heal or bring up bitterness. It can empower or weaken.
Ever hear a song and immediately get struck by emotion?
Music is POWERFUL.
The Bible even speaks to the power of music.
So, we’ve compiled a She Lives Purposefully playlist to get you THROUGH. These are songs that me and our team listen to that move us for the better and draw us closer to the Lord. They instill and encourage healthy, intentional, healing, positive, real, purposeful ways of life.
Comparison – The Purpose Distractor
Comparison creeps into the corners of our lives and then, slowly but surely, begins to consume us.
Really comparison is a form of jealousy. It’s the desire to be like or be better than someone or have what someone has, whether it’s a career, body, clothes, relationship, friends, etc.
“Envy makes the bones rot.” Proverbs 14:30
Comparison is dangerous and unrelenting.
It makes us feel less than and unfulfilled.
We all have different functions in this world, and comparison is form of thinking we should all have the same function, the same purpose, the same life. Comparison sinks in this thought that we should all be the same, all uniform and without differentiation.
But friends, you were uniquely created with a unique purpose.
Why We’re Not Forging Our Own Purpose
“Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” Psalm 127:1-2
If we want to step into all that God has for us, we have to do just that: STEP INTO all that HE has for us.
Friends, it is time to stop forging our own path. This little section of scripture holds SO MUCH regarding purpose.
Without God building anything and everything we do, even when we do it or reach for it with hard work, diligence and even anxious toil, it’s in vain.
Purpose in Pain
We often think of feeling pain as weak.
We tend to push it deep down, leaving undealt-with emotions and agony.
But over the years I’ve found that there is purpose in pain. God uses pain in countless ways, some of which we may never even see.
I grew up on a farm with a get-tough attitude. Though this helped me have thick skin, it often made pain difficult to deal with, so I pushed it deep down. I felt like a failure if I was hurt and felt any sort of emotional pain. Eventually I learned that there is a strange, beautiful purpose in pain.
Pain is something we all have in common: broken families, difficult relationships, death.
As humans, we have all felt that suffering to some extent or we will.
Though we may see and feel the hard times, we have a difficult time walking through those seasons and seeing purpose through it all.
When painful times come, we often ask the Lord to get us out of the trial, not grow and strengthen us as we walk through it.