When Passion Meets Purpose

So let's have an honesty hour...

With the growth of the project I started at the top of this year in January, The Prayer Project, my mind has been filled with new ideas to get it to grow, expand and flourish. I recently have been overwhelmed with my many ideas of turning this project into a business. Although having these thoughts are perfectly normal and fine, I really have to take a step back and remember why I started this project in the first place. So I'm taking a moment to check my heart and correct any selfish motives behind its growth.

I didn't start The Prayer Project for the purpose of turning it into a business. Not at all. Money was the furthest thing in my mind. I began this movement because I saw a need. I saw a heartbreaking need that I knew I wanted to help with. God opened my eyes and put a burning fire in my heart filled with intense compassion and desire to contribute to a change. I knew then that I couldn't be afraid anymore. I had to do it. I had to listen to and answer the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit impressing on my heart how He's prepared me for this.

When I think of why I started The Prayer Project, I'm reminded how sad I felt for those with broken hearts that had grown cold; for those who had never experienced the warmth of God's love through the people surrounding them. I remember believing that I had something worth sharing that could help. I remember feeling overcome with excitement that God had given me something to offer.

It saddens me that so many of us are lost. We don't know how to love. We are subconsciously relying on the poor examples of love that we see on TV and in our homes not knowing that these poor examples are singlehandedly destroying us and our relationships. Some of us don't even understand what it means to be selfless or even kind. 

These are things that break my heart. 

I see people "cutting people off" left and right, treating relationships and people as possessions and commodities that are interchangeable, as long as it benefits them. We don't know what it means to serve or to put others before ourselves. We have completely lost and overlooked what Jesus taught us was MOST important (John 15:12). Our hearts are a mess because if it. 

THIS is why I started The Prayer Project. 

My passion is to contribute to changing people's tainted perspective of love and helping reinstitute Jesus' example of what love is and how we are to love others.

My prayer for this project is to reach the unreachable. To build a community of intercessors to be the extension, the hands and feet, of Jesus' heart; sharing with the closed-hearted and cold-hearted His perfect and transforming love in efforts to break open their hearts to receive all that Jesus Christ has for them. As a result, I pray that this will create a ripple effect, where more people are reached by gentle acts of genuine Christly love, recognize God's immense love for them and do the same for others. 

My prayer is that hearts are changed and made whole, broken relationships are restored and that love, God's love, begins to rule in more hearts and more homes and will ultimately draw the unsaved to salvation.

By Christ's love, all of this is possible.

I recognize and am in constant awe of the power in God's love. It was God's love that saved me. Saved me from myself and saved me from living a life of ruins. It is God's love that continues to rescue me, over and over again. And for this reason alone, it my life's mission to share that with as many people as I can.

This is why this project is so near and dear to me. This is my personal reminder. I've written this here so that I will never forget, no matter how large or small The Prayer Project becomes, the reason I've started this project.

Love.

"Dear Children, let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions." 

- 1John 3:18 (NLT)

Purpose, Passion, Success

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the purpose for the many gifts and talents God has blessed me with. To be a bit transparent, one of my greatest fears in life is that I will pass away without using everything God has put inside of me. As I am evolving, I am noticing new abilities and gifts surface and am noticing new things about myself that I didn't know before. And to be honest, every time God shows me something new about myself, I develop a burning passion and desire to make use of it right away. Is that normal? I don't know, but that is my truth. I think it has to do with me being extremely passionate.

Being passionate can be a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it fuels me by putting fire under my butt. My strong desires and intense passions motivate me and gets me moving. I say it can be a curse because, sometimes the same intensity that I experience when I am extremely passionate about something, is the same intensity I feel when I am sad about something; or if the passion I feel doesn't catch on to the people I share it with. For example, it's like going to see a movie and enjoying it so much that you have to tell someone about it. They go see that same movie and tell you it was just okay. Stings a bit right?

Well, with this understanding that I have about myself, and in knowing that I am multi-passionate, I find that I struggle with trying to figure out, which one thing(s) that God put inside of me will lead me down the path of "success"? I put success in quotation marks because really, success is subjective. In our minds, we all have different ideas what the definition of success is. To some it may mean money and recognition. To others it may mean having a well fed and taken care of family. Then you have society. Society screams at us, telling us that success is being well educated (more than one degree), being fit/thin, having a big house, cars, great job, yadda yadda yadda.

In the article, "Why the Definition of Success Needs a Serious Face Lift" by the Huffington Post, the writer explains the harm that this illusion of success can have on us. She says,

"What happens when we unconsciously buy into our society's success model is that our thoughts stay in lack, making us feel that we are not enough, and we need this or that to feel whole again. The illusion has survived because we have kept the fallacy alive in our minds and continue to take action as though this was the true model for success...If you're hanging on the whim of society's definition of success -- you're always going to be chasing something that does not exist."

With that nugget of valuable information, and my curiosity, I wanted to know what God had to say about '"success". I mean after all He created all things right? Surely He would set a standard for us. In Joshua 1:8, God says,

"Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do." Joshua 1:8

If that isn't the most clear and concise set of instructions! Success is God's idea. He wants us to prosper and succeed HIS way. His way includes us being obedient to Him by reading and studying His Word and actually obeying them. If we do this we will always be in God's will. I don't know about you but I would rather succeed by God's standards than any other made-up standard. Knowing this comforts me. Success is knowing God, accepting what He wants for our lives and following that. In God's eyes, success is mostly about our journey. He wants our focus to be on cultivating who we are internally and becoming more like Him. It's not all about the results. He want's us to leave that in His hands. He already promised that we would "succeed in all we do" if we follow those instructions. If we can focus on that, we give God the space to produce the success He promises in our lives.

xo

Reference Scripture:
Joshua 1:8

Blurb: Check out the Huffington Post article by clicking on the link sourced. It really does put things into perspective for those who may be struggling with living in a "success" driven society.