I heard a quote a few months ago that changed my perspective on a few things in my life.
“Our need to be known pales in comparison to the need before me.”-Suzanne Eller
We all want to be known. Social media doesn’t help us with this temptation. I want to be known too. But in my need to be known I also fall into the trap of not paying attention to my own work and comparing myself to others. This leads me to live only to satisfy my own sinful nature. Sometimes honestly I just get tired of being a ‘good girl’. However when I start to think like this it never leads me to a good place. It makes me question my purpose. This is debilitating for what God’s plans are for me. It’s as though a drought has settled itself over the field that God intended me to harvest. Sometimes it’s my circumstances that lead me to this place. I feel lonely. I’m a mom, if you’re a mom you get what I mean. But than to top it off I’m also a solo musician. No staff meetings for me, no staff parties, no staff at all other than my two harp associates whom I mainly text and email. Sometimes I feel that if I could be more known than I wouldn’t be lonely and my purpose would be so clear and obvious to me and to everyone else.
When I read that quote it was a like I hit a roadblock. It was like I was going one way and than God said, “No not this way. You’re going the wrong way, this is not an option for you. If you go beyond here, proceed at your own risk.”
We can never let our circumstances lie to us. Nothing, can separate us from God. Our circumstances don’t display God’s love to us, if they did that wouldn’t match His character. He already proved His love to us through His Son. God is good, all the time. God invites us all to know He is good and He is good to us. He had a plan, sin wrecked it. Our sins wreck His plans too but He is always there. Right there. Even though we may feel far from Him, He is near to us. He never leaves us alone. When I am lonely He is there. But sadly I can have everything and still struggle to know my purpose and have a desire to be known. For me personally this whole need to be known struggle always starts with a lie that if I can fulfill my need to be known than I will have a bigger and better purpose. But the problem becomes that my need to be known ends up becoming my purpose. Reading through Galatians 6 really helped me understand why this quote pricked my heart so deeply.
Galatians 6
4 Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else.
8 Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. 10 Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.
I love verse 4 because God knows we need the satisfaction of a job well done and He promises that if we can just stay focused on our own work we will be satisfied. We won’t need to compare ourselves to anyone else. I can’t get tired of doing what is good. I can’t allow Satan to discourage me from being a ‘good girl’ and knowing that God is good to me. It’s tiring but at just the right time we will all reap a harvest of blessing!
God’s purpose for me is to praise Him and give Him glory right where I am now. My purpose are the needs before me and I must pay attention to them so that I will get the satisfaction of a job well done. I can’t continue to let my need to be known bring a drought over the field God wants me to harvest!
Ephesians 1
12 God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. 13 And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. 14 The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.
James 4
17 Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
in the clay,
Chantal Dube