Today I am going to talk to you about purpose. But first, I need you to do something. Go ahead and let all of the pre-existing, run of the mill, Jeremiah 29:11thoughts and ideas about purpose fill a bucket in your mind.
"Purpose is for the elite." "I know God has a purpose for me, I'm okay." ...eye rolls... ...sighs... Put is all in the bucket. Now, pick up that bucket, take it out back and dump it out! give it a good shake, make sure it's empty.
Is your bucket completely empty? Good! Now I need you to place that bucket somewhere safe, accessible, but safe. You need to be able to reach this bucket so you can fill it, but you need to be able to guard this bucket so nothing tainted and mundane is able to sneak in there again.
Now, let's visit some scripture. We are going to jump through the first three chapters of the Bible, highlighting key points. So sit up, buckle up and lets get moving. :)
"Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being... 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the middle of the garden to work it and take care of it." Then God created woman, when no suitable helper was found. - Genesis 2:7, 15-16, 20-23
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. - Genesis 1:1, 27-31
And now we fast forward to The Fall. 16 "To the woman he said, I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. 17 To Adam he said, Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you , 'You must not eat of it,' Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." - Genesis 3:16-19
Whew! That was a lot!! Okay, now let us start chewing this up so we can absorb it and fully digest it! These excerpts are the words that God spoke to us. When God speaks things happen so it is good for us to pay attention and understand.
Let's work backwards through this scripture. The last portion of this is the curse God had to give as a result of sin entering this world.
*Death: up until this point, death hasn't even been mentioned. This may be a revelation for some of you, but life isn't the curse, death is. Let that soak in.
Later in Bible God shortens our life span, because we are too evil to live too long. How sad is that? Imagine yourself in God's shoes. Do you have a child or children? Have you ever given them ONE rule? All they have to do, or not do, is ONE THING. Then they don't listen and you have to punish them. Then, when you're punishing them, they have a melt down. They start freaking out! Depending on the age of your child, this rebellion can last for a few minutes or a few days, or a few weeks, and so on. You have to continue to punish, limit and restrict them during that time. All the while, you're begging them, 'Listen, Please just listen to me and choose to come back and obey these rules and we can move on with our life.'
That's exactly what happened here. The initial punishment: Death. Later in scripture, because of our fit throwing and rebellion He has to shorten or lives to a fraction of the time because we're too wicked. Death is definitely a curse. Satan, the one who started all of this, is making the gift look like the curse. Go figure. {insert eye roll}
*Work to Survive: If this doesn't resonate with you then please, adopt all of us! This is the point where the Lord had to inform us that the consequences were going to affect us for a while. We now will toil [work hard] just to survive. Today, thousands of years later, we still have to work hard to make a dollar. The dollar isn't the goal, it's the food and shelter, and everything that the dollar buys. Our work, is not our purpose. Yes, God uses what we do, our gifts, our talents, our abilities, the people we're around and every little thing to glorify Him and show His love to us and to others. But working is not what we were created for.
*Desire Your Husband: Depending on what your marriage looks like, or what your intimate relationships have looked like, this can set on one extreme or the other, or maybe somewhere in the middle. The bottom line is that the entrance of sin created an opportunity for that to become a hurtful thing.
*Painful Birthing: Giving birth was not meant to be sorrowful and hurtful, but a joyous thing, a celebration. Thank you sin for making this one of the most excruciating pains ever. Luckily, in this day in age, when it comes to child birthing we have things that make this pain less or not there at all so it is once again only joy. This is applicable to birthing dreams, purposes... God things. There is pain in the birthing process. Sin wants you to give up and not push through. If you can get through that part, your pain is turned to joy! - Child rearing and dream rearing comes with difficulties, but you still push through! The celebrations that help carry us through the pain. The promises of joy and purpose, the promises of fruit that give us the gumption to keep going. Because, after all isn't "being fruitful the first blessing from God?
Let's go back to chapter one. In these verses of scripture we see God's first words to us, his sons and daughters. The ones who he created IN HIS IMAGE!
*Be fruitful
*Multiply, increase in numbers
*Fill the earth
These first three things should fill us with joy and excitement! Have you ever done something well and had someone ask you to do it again? Or maybe your children did something cute and you asked them to do it again. It's because what they did or what you did was good, it gave a gift of joy or love or something that was pleasing. We want more good in our life. We are proud when those we love do well and we want them to more and have more of that good. It's the same thing with God. He saw us as good, and he told us to go and do more good, go and create more good. That's exciting!
Let those words fill your bucket. Your purpose bucket, let those words fill it! You are good! Multiply and increase that good. Share that good. Do more of that good. I want more of you.
*Subdue the earth
*Rule
Have you ever left your kids alone and left one of them "in charge"? Or maybe you and your siblings were left alone and someone was left "in charge". My children aren't old enough to use them as an example so I'm using me. I am the oldest of three girls. One is only twenty-two months younger and the other is five years younger. So when we were home alone I was the one left in charge. I. was IN. CHARGE. {head nodding, lips pressed together, hands on hip, toe tapping.} Yup. There was a demeanor that came over me. My sisters couldn't do anything about it. I was the boss. end of story.
This is God giving that to you. Setting you in charge. Giving you permission. Go rule. God is telling you that what you have is good, He wants more of it, and that you have been given the authority to go out and make it happen. So no matter what he has gifted you with, let that demeanor, that confidence fill your purpose bucket. Go with authority and live it.
*I give you...EVERYTHING
He says I give you everything!! Do you understand that God spoke and it happened. God said, and so it was. While we may be tempted to just wonder on past these words, God is awakening our souls to receive them. Your purpose is the same that God gave to Adam, and created Eve to help him with; "
The Lord God took the man and put him in the middle of the garden to work it and take care of it." (Gen.2:15) Your garden may be a variety of things. It may be on a stage in front of thousands of people, or it may not. It may be at home with your husband and your children. It may be in a school, a work place, a building. Wherever your garden is, your purpose is the same; work it and take care of it. Love it. Grow it. Let your garden glorify God. A garden full of weeds, brings no one glory, but a beautiful garden takes work and stewardship. The purpose of your garden is to praise God.
So imagine your garden. What does it look like now? Has it been grown with the tools of the curse, from a bucket of mediocre purpose? Or has it been grown with the tools that God gave us when He spoke His blessing over us?
Multiply. Be fruitful. Rule.
In Ephesians 3:20 we are told that God is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that you can ask think or imagine. Imagine your garden going abundantly! Imagine you, taking hold of your ONE purpose, to shine a light of love and praise on God. Take that purpose, your bucket of blessings, new understanding, and go to your garden. Then get to work, in the name of Jesus!
~Awaken us~
Brenna Stanford
