41 - The Time Struggle

Your calling is going to crush you. If you’re called to mend the brokenhearted, you’re going to wrestle with broken-heartedness. If you’re called to prophesy, you’re going to struggle to control your mouth. If you’re called to lay hands, you will battle spiritual viruses. If you are called to preach and to teach the gospel, you will be sifted for the wisdom that anoints your message. If you are called to empower, your self-esteem will be attacked, your successes will be hard fought. Your calling will come with cups, thorns and sifting that are necessary for your mantle to be authentic, humble and powerful. Your crushing won’t be easy because your assignment is not easy. Your oil is not cheap.

Author: Pastor Patrick Weaver

I came across that quote a few years ago when I was really struggling with finding my purpose. I do believe it’s true. The thing I struggle with the most can become my greatest superpower.

The problem was that I struggled with so many things.

How to pinpoint one? How to decide which is the biggest one? How to decide which one has the greatest potential for good, if flipped around?

Honestly, I was thinking too much. (There’s a shocker!)

First, I began by journaling.

I do not journal. Wait, let me rephrase that. I did not journal. I liked the idea of journaling, and would periodically pick up a new, crisp, clean journal to start a new phase of my life. A better, more focused life. But after writing things down a couple of times, I would quit. So believe me when I say that I understand the difficulty of that assignment for some people.

As much as I was (and still do) thinking and overthinking, when I sat down to write, nothing would come to mind. I would write what I had done that day (nothing amazing), or thoughts about what I should do tomorrow (usually unachievable). It was hard and also boring.

But when my life got flipped upside down in 2019, I started getting up early. Before dawn. I don’t think that that time is a requirement, but for me it worked. I am not a morning person. At all! So, by waking up that early, sitting in the quiet house with my coffee, and watching the sun come up through the window, it inspired thoughts that were not average. I pondered why I was here. Why is anyone here? And if I am here, what is the purpose in that? Does my life matter? Does anything matter?

The house was still quiet as the sky turned beautiful colors of pinks and blues. The birds began to chirp. The absolute beauty of those moments overwhelmed me in such an impactful way! Since growing up, I had rarely (if ever) slowed down enough to enjoy the moment. To appreciate where I was. At that exact place. In that time.

For all of us, we live in a world that is held hostage by a specific measure. Everything is defined by the parameters of time. When were you born? What is today’s date? When is my doctor’s appointment? Where were you when this thing happened? I am constantly looking back at when something happened, or looking ahead to when something is supposed to happen. I am rarely in the moment. The moment, by the way, that still keeps moving forward.

Take my morning cup of coffee, for example. I got up at a certain time when my alarm went off. It took time to make the coffee and then to sit down in my favorite chair by the window. When the light began to filter into the darkness, time had gone by. A little more time, and then suddenly it was light. If I wasn’t paying attention, I missed the glorious show.

At first, even though I didn’t solve the meaning of life, I was content. Content because I was present and aware of what was happening. I was living in and enjoying the moment. The world was beautiful!

I just had to choose to see it.

And that’s when I started journaling. I no longer would make lists of things to accomplish that day. Because I had just witnessed the glorious miracle of another day beginning, I had bigger thoughts.

Although I was all-to-aware of all of my flaws, I wrote out possibilities of what I had to offer the world. I imagined what I would say if I were to give a TED talk. I imagined what I would teach, if ever I were asked. I imagined what stories I had to share with the world. I thought about different perspectives, different ways of seeing common, boring life experiences.

I tried to see the power and the potential in the mundane. That’s when my journals really started to fill.

My purpose became clear later. When I was flipping through the journals, reading my words (and sometimes trying to even figure out what the heck I was saying!) I came across a seemingly average entry about an interaction with God. Except when I read it this time, it seemed to jump out of the page.

I think that is what is difficult about finding purpose. It doesn’t happen on a specific timeline. My schedule of when it should happen.

And the mind boggling thing was about how it happened. I had written the words in my journal, then put it away. I added more and more entries for a very long period of time. It was later, when I was flipping back through my words, that it jumped out at me.

How had I missed it? It wasn’t the right time. Until it was.

Time. Sometimes it flies by. Sometimes it is painstakingly slow. And as much as I hate being constrained by it, I have to learn to go with it. Go with the flow. Flow with the time.

So how to find your purpose? Maybe start writing some things down on paper. Things you can go back, pick up, and read again.

You have greatness inside of you! Let me say that again. You have greatness inside of you!

Let it out. Write it down.

Maybe you will find out that the thing you struggle with the most can become your greatest superpower.