Questions to Live By
Do you have questions that you live by? Beautiful questions that define and give structure to your life?
I’ve been reflecting on this since my blog post last week when I asked whether there were any questions that had given your life direction. I’ve been wondering since then: What are the questions I live by?
Questions I Live By
In my twenties I struggled to answer the question, “What was I to do with my life?” I wanted to make a difference. Money wasn’t important to me. I tried to figure out what I could do that would have the greatest impact and decided on ministry. Like Marcie in my book, Delicious Secrets, I jumped from one thing to another in my search. Marcie’s indecision about what she wanted to do with her life was based on her desire to make the greatest impact possible, to make a difference.
Now that I have lived the majority of my life, I look back and ask, “Did I make a difference? Has my life had meaning and purpose?” One of the problems with ministry is that it is so nebulous. You deal with intangibles. There’s not a lot of concrete ways to show you made a difference, yet, oh, those beautiful intangibles can make all of the difference between a life well lived and a life wasted.
Other Questions
Other questions have given meaning to my life. Is God real or just made up? Is God good? And if so, how do you explain all of the suffering in our world? Who is Jesus?
Matthew Kelly, in his book, Rediscovering Jesus, challenges readers to keep asking the question Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do you say I am?” Who is Jesus to you? It is a question well worth asking. We need to keep rediscovering Jesus throughout our life.
Seeking God’s Will
My burning desire throughout my life though, the one constant, has been to know God’s will for me and do that will. And so, the question that I live by is, “What is God’s will for me?” However feebly I may fulfill this desire, no matter how many mistakes along the way, I know that has been my intent. The answer to that question has taken different shapes at different times of my life.
As a young mother, I believed God’s will for me was to care for my children, doing the best that I could. I also was in ministry at the time. I believed God’s will for me was not to change the church or the world but to care for the people God placed before me.
When laid off from my ministry positions five years ago, I struggled–what was I to do next? What was God’s will for me now? Was I meant to find a new ministry position, or was I called to write? It wasn’t clear to me at first. It has been over time that I’ve come to believe that God has called me out of active church ministry and into writing.
God’s Will Now
I love writing. I’ve been writing in some form all of my life. I write because I believe that is what God is calling me to do. I write novels, blog posts, and non-fiction and send them out into the universe with little idea whether anyone reads them, little notion whether they have had a positive impact on another’s life. Like ministry, writing involves so many intangibles. Still I write, in answer to that over-riding question, “What is God’s will for me?” That is my answer for the present moment.
Is there a question that has given your life direction and meaning? I would love to hear it.
Wishing you a life full of beautiful intangibles!
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