My friend was struggling with knowing if she was doing enough for God. Her health struggles kept her home and unable to visit the women she had begun to disciple. Gently I asked her what she wanted her life to be about. “Making disciples,” she whispered, her eyes wet.

I nodded and affirmed this to be a worthy aim. “The only thing is, when your health keeps you home and unable to build relationships, you feel like you can’t live up to your purpose.” 

Purpose. It’s a heavy word. 

As a cross-cultural worker, making sure we live with purpose can feel complicated. In seasons when our external ministry seems dry – we are home with young kids or our health keeps us close to home or doors seem to close everywhere we turn – we can begin to wonder what good are we doing for God. Living life with purpose can feel like a burden. 

Why am I in this country if I’m always home?

Am I doing the good works appointed for me? (Eph. 2:10) 

Can we rest in knowing our purpose is to live life with God? Not live a life of doing things for God. It’s so easy for our good works to become our focus. Doing the “good works appointed for us” (Eph. 2:10) is how we desire to spend our lives, but it cannot be our first focus because when we are unable to DO, we feel that we have lost our purpose. 

We seek first knowing God (Matt. 6:33) in life lived with Him and the things He wants us to do will follow. If we seek to live life with God, I think we will find satisfaction in the life He has set before us (Ecc. 5:20). Our aim as believers is to know God, and in knowing Him we find more and more joy in Him. 

May we be women of whom others could say: She lived life with God and that life took her to the lost and hurting, taught her how to pray, and gave her a delight in God that shone in the dark and needy world around her.