Happy New Year, High Point Family!
With the start of the new year, it is a good time to talk about finding your purpose. Why is it important to discover your purpose? I believe one of the main reasons is that if you don’t know your life’s purpose, you won’t know what you’re aiming at. “If you aim at nothing you’ll hit it every time,” as the saying goes. Not having any target in life is the equivalent to a hunter going in the woods and shooting off a bunch of random gunshots through the trees and saying, “wow, I sure hope something good runs into that.”
We need to discover our purpose, and we also need to help our children work towards discovering theirs. Sometimes parents tell their kids, “Honey, you can be anything you want to be.” That statement isn’t really accurate—If it was, many boys and girls would grow up to be pro athletes. A more accurate statement would be, “Honey, you can do great things in life. God has a wonderful plan for you, and I know you can fulfill it with His help.” So how do we find our purpose and help our kids find theirs? A major key is in Joshua 1:8. It says, “Study this book of instruction (meaning the Bible) 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.” How do you do this? How do you meditate The Word of God until it starts directing you from the inside out, so that you prosper in the plan God has for your life? I found that God will illuminate certain scriptures to people based on what their calling is, and there will be different scriptures that God illuminates at different key points in your life. I believe there are certain scriptures we are to meditate on in different seasons of life.
When I first gave my life to Christ, I used to struggle a lot with fear. The first scripture that the Lord started illuminating to me was 2 Timothy 1:7 that says, “God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind.” I would read that scripture often and think about it whenever I went to bed, meditating on it at night. Overcoming fear was the first key for me being able to fulfill my destiny, so that’s where God started with me.
Then during my latter years of college, Jeremiah 29:11 stood out to me So I kept it before my eyes, thinking about it often and meditating, “I know the plans that I have for you says the Lord, they are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” At that time in my life I met my husband Shaun, and I still wasn’t completely sure what God was calling me to in my future, but that scripture started directing me into the plans of God.
In the next season of our life, Shaun and I were in a training period and it wasn’t easy. We barely had enough money at times to get by. We prayed much and learned to believe God for our basic needs to be met, which wasn’t always easy. In that season, I sensed a strong pull towards Isaiah 55 and I read that scripture multiple times every day. I especially meditated on Isaiah 55:1-3 which says, “You who thirst come to the waters and you who have no money come buy and eat, yes, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good, and your soul shall delight itself in abundance.” I just kept meditating these scriptures, believing even though we were lacking monetary means, God would supernaturally provide for us as we let our souls delight in His goodness and abundance; that He would supernaturally get the provision to us, and He definitely did.
Then in the next season of our life, God was preparing us for our calling of marriage and family ministry as well as preparation for pastoring a church one day. During that time, Ephesians 3:20 was strong in our hearts to meditate. It says, “Now to him, who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all, much more than we could ask or think, according to His power at work in us, be glory forever through Christ Jesus.” Through meditating this together daily, Shaun and I experienced many miraculous breakthroughs, including knowing where and how to start the church that we now pastor. We had a miraculous breakthrough for finding a house when we were moving back to Minnesota, and the house that we found to rent, through the total grace of God, was two and a half times bigger and better than our prior house and half the price. It was an absolute miracle! We also had a miraculous connection to amazing babysitters, which we were praying to find for our kids and had a phenomenal breakthrough when we found a place to rent for starting our new church. We experienced miracle after miracle for everything we needed by putting God first and meditating the scripture God had put on our hearts.
As scriptures strongly stand out to us, we focus on them and God uses these scriptures to direct us in the right direction in our life, and He will do the exact same thing for you! As we focus our attention on these scriptures—targeting them—at certain seasons in our life, the meditation of these scriptures bring wisdom and revelation on the inside of us. This wisdom and revelation then produces the outward result of prospering us in our life and calling.
If you’ve never meditated scripture before, or if you haven’t been doing this regularly, I’d encourage you to start doing this daily. When you are patient and consistent with meditation, it does bring about major wonderful results. The key is to not just do this for a week or a month, but instead to stay focused; day after day, month after month—you will see consistent results. Also, ask the Lord to give you a verse to meditate over each one of your kids. Then print it or write it and place it up on their wall so that you remember to pray it over them each night before they go to bed, so they hear you saying it. There may be times when the Lord adds another verse for your kids based on their season in life. You can be creative with this and have someone who’s a great artist paint that scripture for their wall or print it with a nice graphic design behind it and frame it for their wall.
Remember, the key for you, as well as your kids, for prospering in the life God has called you to is to meditate the specific verses God puts in your heart, like a target you are pointing your arrows at. When you do, you will begin to move forward in your life’s purpose like never before.
May this year be your most prolific,
Pastors Shaun & Amy
