For When You Shake Your Fists at the Sky: Activating Your Purpose Through the Power of Scripture (A 31 Day Series)

Originally published Tuesday, 04 October 2016.

activating-your-purpose-1

Whenever we need a match to light a candle, we strike it and, poof, just like magic fire appears. We don’t have to think about it, we just do it. The red phosphorus, sulfur, and potassium chlorate, amongst other ingredients involved in the process, never even enters our minds.

And, yet, when we send up a short prayer while dusting off our Bibles for a two minute counseling session with the Wonderful Counselor, asking hard questions about our futures with seemingly no answers, we shake our fists at the sky protesting the audacity of a God who refuses to work in our allotted time frame. We expect the magic of the match stick.

I need to tell you a little something about myself in hopes it will help you: when I stopped shaking my fists at the sky and started opening my hands in surrender, my path of purpose began to light up. When I disciplined myself to the study of scriptures each and every day, a fire of passion began. It didn’t work like a match, it was more like the method of rubbing flint and steel together, but when the first spark flew I knew my soul would never be the same.

activating

When we seek God we usually want a fire to ignite, but when we think hard about it, it’s not our fire we’re concentrating on, it’s His. We want Him to have a passion to give us answers. Like, right now! We want Him to do all the work, and if it doesn’t happen immediately, hope diminishes and our angry wandering of searching for purpose continues, much like some others I’ve read about who spent forty long years sweating in a desert.

Now, don’t worry. I’m not saying you have to spend hours a day with your nose inside a Bible. However, don’t be surprised if, after rubbing flint and steel together for a while, you ache to. If it happened to me it can happen to anybody! Throughout this 31 day series I’m going to teach you what I’ve done in my own life to activate purpose through the power of scripture.

When I searched the definition of activate in Merriam Webster, I found this at the very beginning: Activate: to make active or more active… The goal of this 31 day series is to make you active, or more active, in getting to know who God is and what His purpose is for you.

I also want to be honest and tell you something else: I’m much more concerned about each of you gaining a deeper relationship with Christ than I am about my blog subscription numbers. You are all so much more to me than a list of email followers. Nearing the end of October, I’m planning to have some giveaways as well as make you aware of special offers. That means I will have to remind you from time to time that if you subscribe, you won’t miss any of this 31 day series or anything else that develops in the process.

You might wonder what happens if you subscribe. Well, each day throughout the month of October you’ll receive an email including a blog post for this series. After October, you’ll see a post in your email from me once or twice a week. You can unsubscribe at any time.

This will be more like a 31 Day Study than a regular daily blog read. Because of this, you will see recommended “homework,” which includes small faith exercises to encourage others and ourselves within this pursuit of purpose. It’s designed to help you dig inside the word, but will take a very short amount of time. I believe in setting small goals. It’s about being consistent, not setting unrealistic goals we cannot meet. Let’s set ourselves up for success, shall we? We will be using the hashtag #ActivatingYourPurpose to connect with each other via social media. If you don’t have a social media account, please share with us in the comment section underneath each blog post.

I sincerely hope to get to know you better throughout this series. If you have any questions, comments, or thoughts on purpose you would like to discuss, please either leave a comment, or email me at Jen@jenniferkostick.com.

Love to you, friend.

I’ll meet you back here tomorrow!

Jennifer

PS: To Tweet a link to this post, click here.

To know what’s ahead in this series check out my landing list below…

Day Two: Do You Believe You Have Purpose?

Day Three: The Conversation

Day Four: No More Denying

Day Five: No Condemnation

Day Six: Religion Versus Relationship

Day Seven: Owning Righteousness

Day Eight: Do Not Despise Small Beginnings