Finding Purpose With Someone Who’s Been There

Friends,
Meet Tricia Goyer. I’m excited to tell you Tricia is guest blogging for me today. You will be blessed by her wisdom and her love.
With faith, hope, and love,
Lori
PS Tricia wrote the forward for my co-authored book with Becky Danielson, Raising Little Kids with Big Love. (Thanks Tricia!)

Finding Purpose With Someone Who’s Been There

by Tricia Goyer

My friend Tara owns 100 acres of beautiful Montana wilderness, situated on the side of a mountain. There is no road to take us to her land. Wild animals like deer, elk, foxes and squirrels call it their home, but no human ever has. One day, when we went to explore her property with our kids, we had to park at the end of the service road and hike in.

The land is untouched by development, and I couldn’t see a trail or a path. We walked around trees and stepped over logs. We pushed our way through brush and climbed up and down hills. Decaying leaves crunched under our feet. Bird songs punctuated our steps. The kids collected pine cones and watched squirrels jumping from limb to limb. In some places the thick brush scratched our legs as we walked past. Other times we climbed over decaying logs scattered over the landscape like pixie sticks. Once, while pushing myself through a cluster of juvenile pines, a large limb snap back and punched my arm as I pushed past it. Ouch.

After we’d been wandering for twenty minutes Tara called the kids to come closer and to quiet down. “There’s a beaver pond just ahead. If everyone’s quiet we might be able to see some of the beaver family.”

My eyes widened and jaw dropped. Not only because I, like the kids, was excited to see a beaver family, but because Tara knew where we were. As I walked by her side, taking in the beauty, I didn’t realize we had a destination in mind. I had wondered how we’d find out way back to the car. Tara knows the way?

Surprised pleasure lifted my lips into a smile. No wonder my friend had strode forward with such confidence. Tara knew where we were. She had been leading us to the beaver dam. She had a purpose in mind. I wondered, and she planned. I wandered, and she mapped every step—even through precarious terrain.

A few minutes more of walking, we came to the dam. In a green-blue pond, on a tall mountain, in the afternoon sunshine, a beaver family worked and played. They had a purpose in their work, and we’d had a purpose in our walk. Just because the path was unknown and unseen to me, didn’t mean there wasn’t one.

So many times in life we wonder and wander without a plan or purpose. Or even if we set ourselves in a destination we question if we’re headed the right direction. We do what society tells us to do: get married, find a career, buy a house, have children. We volunteer in church, but deep inside we feel as if something is missing. We question, What is my real purpose on earth because this doesn’t feel like enough?

What we don’t realize is that God not only owns the mountainous terrain we call a life’s journey, but He has set up markers to guide our path. No where in the Bible does God tell us what age we should marry, how to pick a vocation, or how many kids to have, but He does give us directives—commands really—to guide our paths. Above and beyond the Ten Commandments there are other directives God asks us to obey. Care for the widow. Adopt the orphan. Serve the poor. Preach the gospel. These are just a few.

We hear these directives in sermons, but we don’t realize their power. We applaud when others follow them, but don’t understand they apply to us, too. And in our ignorance we miss our life’s purpose. We wonder and wander not understand God has a destination in mind, one He will lead us to if we just allow it. A place of purpose, of meaning, of impact. Beaver dams are nice and all but God’s leading always has one purpose in mind, changing lives … starting with ours.

Over the last twenty-eight years as I’ve been following God He’s led me on many adventures. I’ve helped to start a crisis pregnancy center, led mission trips, started a teen mom support group, wrote seventy books and adopted seven kids. It’s been quite a journey, and I talk about a lot of it in my book Walk It Out . Yet this journey isn’t just something God plans for me. There are radical results waiting for each of us when we dare follow Him.

What journey is God leading you on today? Trust He knows the way.

Feel as if you’re missing out on the “more” God has for you? Turn to Him, seek Him, and then step out in faith.

Sometimes in life we wander and we wonder, but we don’t have to. God has a destination in mind. You just have to be willing to step out and follow Him into the wilderness. Ready to begin? Believe me when I say it’s worth every step.

Tricia Goyer is a prolific author of more than seventy books. She is a homeschooling mom of ten, grandmother of four, and wife to John. She is the founder of Hope Pregnancy Center in Kalispell, Montana and now leads a teen mom support group in Little Rock, Arkansas.