Who will you be?

Since arriving in Honduras I have often struggled to fine my purpose. Many days ministry is changed, altered, or canceled altogether. Other times I come to the end of a long day wondering if anything I did was of any use. Did I accomplish anything through my work? Is what I am doing leaving any sort of impact?

 These questions have caused me to often question my own purpose in being here in Honduras. Yes, there are days when I cannot begin to describe the excitement of my life and how I am able to see Christ radically change lives in so many ways: big and small. Yet, what about those days when I go home wondering if anything I did mattered?

 It is during times such as this that God has begun to test me. What am I looking for? Is my definition of purpose tangible success? If so, then my life is pretty shallow. If the extent of my identity lies in seeing change in and through my own strength, then my life will continue to be one disappointment after another. All I will achieve is superficial, disappointing accomplishments that will last about as long as there is breath in my lungs.    

Living in Honduras has forced me to trust God for what I cannot see or achieve in my own strength. It has caused me to rely not on what I can always touch, but more importantly on what Christ is touching in and through me as I seek His face. Sometimes that is building a wall or digging a trench. Other days it means sitting with someone I can hardly speak to and simply letting my smile be enough. In either situation the choice is mine to let Christ live through me.

Before I came on this trip, person after person continued to ask me what I would be doing, whom would I be reaching, and what would I accomplish? While all of these are valid questions I believe there is one far more important. As my squad leader Andrew recently stated, “Instead of asking ‘what will you be doing,’ ask, ‘who will you be?’”

Once he said this, immediately it all became clearer. Fulfillment and purpose will never be found in doing alone. The world is full of doers who live their lives searching for acceptance and success in vanities that will all fade away; leaving them empty with nothing left. Life is not about what you do so much as it is who will you become; who will you let Christ make you to be?

 With this reality in mind, it changes the way I look at my life each day. Instead of my focus resting on how much work can I accomplish, how will my kindness impact those around me? Rather than gaining tangible success, how will grace and love be shown unconditionally to all I come into contact with? The question is not ‘what will I do.’ The final question, which at the end of the day is all that is left, is ‘who will I be?’ In the end it is all that remains; and in such a life, true purpose and fulfillment is found.