Where Joy and Purpose Meet

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned to make God’s will for our life sound heavy.

We speak about surrender to God’s will as though God is waiting to take something from us. We talk about purpose as if there is one correct assignment hidden somewhere in the world and our job is to figure it out before we waste our lives.

I have wondered plenty of times, Am I doing what I am supposed to be doing? But lately I have been wondering something different.

What if God’s will for my life and the deepest longing He placed in me were never meant to be at odds? What if there is something holy about the things that make us come alive?

I don’t mean every impulse or every shiny new thing we want. I mean the deeper current underneath all of that.

The desire to love and be loved.

To create.

To contribute.

To feel useful.

To experience beauty.

To know God.

To wake up with energy for our lives.

To leave someone better because we were here.

To use what we have been given instead of burying it beneath our fear.

Maybe those longings aren’t interruptions to a spiritual life. Maybe they are the fingerprints of our spiritual life. Evidence of the One who made us.

There is a line in a spiritual text I pick up on a regular basis that says, “If you knew what God wills for you, your joy would be complete.”

What if we really believed that? What if God’s will wasn’t something to brace ourselves for? What if it brings us completely joy? What if we could loosen our grip on the fear that surrender will somehow make our lives smaller and begin trusting that the One who created us knows something about what will make us whole?

That definitely changes purpose for me. Purpose becomes less of a destination and more of an intimate relationship.

I stay close.

I pay attention.

I notice what brings life with it.

I notice what keeps tugging at my heart even when there is no applause attached.

I notice where my gifts meet someone else’s need.

I notice what leaves me with that quiet sense of this matters.

And I do my best to follow.

Sometimes one tiny step at a time. Maybe this is why our vitality matters more than we realize.

There is a version of life where we spend so much energy managing our bodies, surviving our exhaustion, quieting our symptoms, worrying about how we look, or recovering from the ways we have neglected ourselves that there isn’t much of us left for anything else.

Our world gets smaller. And then when we turn our attention to healing, it begins to give some of that life back.

A little energy returns. Our thinking clears. We sleep. We move. We laugh more easily. We begin wanting things again. We begin imagining again. We look beyond ourselves again. That is the part of health I am most interested in.

Because maybe vitality isn’t the purpose. Maybe vitality gives purpose somewhere to go. Your health gives your love legs. It gives your gifts time. It gives your spirit a body through which it can touch another human life. And suddenly taking care of yourself isn’t about becoming the best version of yourself. It’s more about being here for your life.

Fully here.

There may be things still waiting to come through you that you can’t see yet.

People you haven’t met.

Words you haven’t spoken.

Tables you haven’t sat around.

Ideas you haven’t had.

Places your feet haven’t carried you.

Someone may someday be grateful that you took care of the woman you are today to do the thing that is needed in this world tomorrow. Maybe we don’t need to know exactly what all of it is yet. Maybe God isn’t asking us to solve our entire lives. Maybe He is asking us to trust that the life He placed within us is good.

To care for it.

To listen to it.

To offer it back to Him.

And to follow where it comes alive.

Our joy becomes complete when we trust what God has willed for us.