What's My Why

In school we are taught to ask ourselves the questions: who? what? when? where? and why? And often, we find those first four questions pretty easy to answer.

Who am I? Emma Chester.

What am I? An eighteen year old girl.

When am I? The oh, so epic year of 2021.

Where am I? North Georgia, or on a bigger scale, Earth.

But WHY AM I? That one is a little more tricky. Asking yourself what the purpose of your life is; it's the question that people write novels about, ask God and the stars, and ponder for most of their lives, and quite frankly, it's a question that we may never have the answer to.

Here's what I do know though: when we find out what little things make us happy, we are able to start cultivating our passions, and when we figure out what we are passionate about, we discover our purpose. That may sound a little familiar to you, and that's because it's in my author bio! It's the process that I have been going through for the past year, and truthfully, my whole life. It's the reason I started this blog, and why I want to share this with you.

Since the inspiration for this blog is already in my bio, I'll save you the trouble from reading it twice. Instead, I want to talk about being passionate.

That's a word that I find is often used to describe me. It's the way that I want to live my life: passionate for God and passionate for others. I don't think that anything in life should be done halfway, because that's not the way that Jesus lived. He sought, served, and saved with a reckless abandoned, that as Christians we are called to emulate. When people see that you have something you're passionate about, they want to be a part of it. They want to understand what it is you have that makes you so bold. It's the same thing that happened when the disciples radically shared the love of God, to the degree of being crucified upside down.

So, you're now beginning to see WHY passion is so important: if you ever want people to believe anything you have to share, whether that's a product, hobby, or belief, you have to do so with passion.

But how do you get passionate? The first step, is identifying what brings you joy. Knowing what brings you joy, gives your passions direction. Otherwise, you'll be chasing your tail your whole life. So for this first post I want to challenge you: make a list. Write down at least five things that bring you joy, whether that's a person, place, or thing. Because those things are where you will begin to find your purpose.

It's something that I had to challenge myself to do almost a year ago, and it radically changed my life, and it's something that I strongly recommend to anyone seeking out their "purpose" in life!

But there is one thing I want to leave you with: regardless of what makes you happy here on Earth, I know that it will all fade away one day (Matthew 6:19-21 says "Your earthly treasures will fade away but your heavenly treasures will be everlasting."). That's why our passions, and in turn our purpose, have to be rooted in the one thing that is eternal: the love and forgiveness of God. My goal in life is for my passion for God to outshine any other thing in life that I care about, and I want that for all of you as well!

If you are already a Christian, then I want to encourage you to be bold! Don't be scared to surrender your passions to the Lord, because from that surrender He will guide you towards your purpose! Don't fear standing passionately for the Lord, because God already told us that it would be hard (John 15:20 "Remember what I told you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also."). And yet, Jesus still died for us.

And if you are not a believer, then maybe this is your opportunity to become one. The Bible teaches that no one is past the love of God, so long as they are willing to repent of their sins and follow Him. If this is a choice you want to make, or something you want to talk about, then there's a section to email me on my home page!

Thank you for reading my first post, I'm so excited to go on this journey with you! See you next week!

-Emma

#faith #purpose #passion #WHY #direction

"Be fearless in pursuit of what sets your soul on fire."