Purpose is Revealed Over Time
Avoid wasting time looking for what you already have.
I’m making a massive update to Sent to Build. Thank you for your patience.
Purpose is not something you discover. It’s something you uncover.
The reason is that your purpose existed before you did. Most of your life is spent uncovering things that were always there. This happens over time.
Many of you don’t know your purpose because you’re looking ahead at something that’s behind you.
Turn around.
God is faithful, and every single day you live, he gives clues to where he wants you to go. I am passionate about helping people uncover their purpose, so I want to share something that happened today.
It was a small moment. Maybe 60 seconds. All of a sudden I felt this inspiration to build. No one asked me. No one paid me. No one motivated me. I just felt this deep longing to produce something that would be helpful to others.
Your purpose will always be tied to benefitting others. Jesus didn’t come to be served, but to serve.
Here is where I always have a struggle.
I don’t always feel spiritual when I’m building software or creating content. It doesn’t feel the same as preaching or praying in tongues.
But when I search the scripture, I find that the first person God filled with his Spirit was a designer. I’m sure designing the Tent didn’t get people to fall under the anointing. But the facilitation of that process was spiritual, and by the time people entered the Tent, they were met with the presence of God.
I spent a lot of time building PrayerGym. It did not feel spiritual at all. Sometimes I wondered if I was wasting my time. Now it’s something that helps facilitate spiritual growth through personal and corporate prayer. I’m about to build another app, and I learned my lesson.
It may not feel like listening to worship music or preaching, but it’s deeply spiritual work.
This is how we detach the work of the Spirit from emotions and flesh.
It’s spiritual if it’s Spirit-led.
You have a gift of administration? Organizing is spiritual. You see through a lens others can’t? Photography and video is spiritual.
The church is a great platform for uncovering purpose because it’s God’s institution for distributing help to his children. Jesus said at an early age, “Don’t you know that I should be about my Father’s business?” There are many aspects of the church that don’t exist because the people carrying that purpose don’t believe it belongs there.
Why can’t the church have a software engineering team?
Most of your purpose will be lived out in the marketplace.
This is why I keep using examples that don’t seem to fit into a church context. But this purpose is supposed to support the church.
You can be a doctor. You can’t practice medicine inside the church, but the church can greatly benefit from your practice of medicine.
We’ve made discipleship about priesthood. We are training people to be very relevant in the church but effectively obsolete in the world. The world is where we are sent, to transform it into the church. Ineffectiveness in the world will reduce the efficacy of the church.
Joseph of Arimathea is described in the Bible as a disciple of Jesus. He never wrote or contributed to the literary Gospels, but he contributed to the Gospel by providing an unused tomb and bringing down the body of Jesus from the cross. He was used to fulfill prophecy.
That is spiritual work.
I want to develop a framework that helps you find what the church needs and what you have to offer, and marry the two. This is what we will do with The Tent Experience Team. You will begin just serving tables. Telling people where the bathroom is. Helping onboard people to our WhatsApp. Then from there you will identify needs and develop a team around them.
The Tent Studio is developing exactly this way. There was a need. There were people who could meet it. Now a team is forming.
Nobody can copy your obedience. It might be a similar direction. It’s not the same path.
If you feel called to serve but don’t know where, I’m working on something to help. Just stay the course. It will help you discern.
Stay and Build.
O.
AMEN