Wednesday Wonder

I am having a bit of an existential crisis these days.

Let me explain.

Each Sunday morning, I receive an email with an affirmation for the week. Affirmations are phrases or sentences of positive thoughts that people say to themselves to keep them focused on the good in themselves, others and the world. Usually, they are to help you find the strength in yourself to treat yourself well and decrease your own negative self-talk. The person who sends me this weekly affirmation is someone I met who was starting a life coach/wellness type business and I thought I would show some interest and give her my email.

I have been receiving these weekly affirmations for a few months now. They also come with questions related to the affirmation that can help prompt a person who likes to journal. Sometimes the affirmation and/or journal prompts catch my attention and make me think. Other times they do not. Often when they don’t it is because they sound too ‘new agey,’ if you will. Personal taste.

This past Sunday, however, it was a statement that really caught my attention, as did the journal prompts to go along with it. And I have been having my existential crisis ever since.

The affirmation I received told me to remember that my presence on this earth is not accidental but essential. An interesting idea to be sure. We all want to find our purpose in life, this seemed to say there definitely is one and I should believe that it is essential to the bigger picture.

The journal prompt that really set me spinning asked: How can I overcome any self-doubt that holds me back from fully stepping into my essential role?

Self-doubts about my essential role? I would have to have figured out what that essential role is first! Most of us spend a lifetime trying to figure out why we are here and what is our purpose in life. Frankly, I can’t have any self-doubt about something I didn’t even know I had until now. Sure, I had heard a lifetime of ‘You are here for a reason.” Maybe, but no one ever seemed to know what it was. They just kept asking me to figure it out. Self-doubts about my purpose? No. Self-doubt about figuring out my purpose? Very likely.

When Jesus is old enough, it seems as though he knew what his purpose on earth was. That is how the story is presented to us in the Bible. Was it really that easy for Jesus to know? Perhaps. That doesn’t mean it is that easy for all of us. We spend our lives trying to find our skills and gifts, trying to figure out how those skills and gifts can be used for the greater good, and trying to find where we can, indeed, work for the greater good.

Perhaps that is where the existential crisis comes in. If I have a purpose that is essential to this earth, then I should be living up to it. How do I know that I am living for the greater good or for the good of myself? When it comes to being part of the Church, my essential purpose should always be about the greater good, the glory of God. Seems that if my presence is no accident then my essential purpose must be for the glory of God.

So, that is where I have come to this week. There is no self-doubt about how to live out my purpose. No self-doubt holding me back from reaching it. But this is self-monitoring to ensure I am always living out that essential purpose to the glory of God. If, each day, I can point myself and others toward God, then I am living out my purpose.