Finding Purpose

Grief. Feels like a shipwreck. One moment life is familiar. The next, you're floating in waters you never expected to navigate, surrounded by pieces of the life you once knew, reaching for whatever you can find just to stay afloat.

Then the waves come.

One after another.

Relentless.

Threatening to pull you under before you've caught your breath from the last one.

If you've ever walked through deep grief, I don't have to explain those pictures.

You know them.

You've lived them.

I know them, too.

Not your story perhaps, but I know what it feels like to have life change in an instant. To wonder how you'll ever move forward. To question whether you'll ever feel whole again. 

Somewhere along the journey—maybe not immediately, but eventually—a different question begins to surface.

"Why?"

Why did this happen?

Why now?

Why them?

Why me?

If we're honest, we're often searching for the purpose of our pain, but over the years I've come to know those are the wrong questions. There are things we simply cannot understand. Job never received an explanation for his suffering. Many of the heroes of our faith learned to trust God without ever being given all the answers. It is not unnatural to ask them, though. Peter wanted answers, too.

Three times Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love Me?" and three times Jesus answered Peter's love with a calling.

"Feed My lambs."

"Tend My sheep."

"Feed My sheep."

Then Jesus spoke of the day Peter would stretch out his hands, revealing the kind of death by which he would glorify God. And after saying this, Jesus simply said,

"Follow Me."

Peter heard the calling. He heard the cost. Then he looked at John.

"Lord, what about this man?"

Jesus answered,

"If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!"
—John 21:22

Jesus didn't answer Peter's curiosity. He called Peter back to his purpose.

"What is that to you? You follow Me."

I wonder if we sometimes do the same thing. We become so consumed with asking why that we miss the One who is saying,

"Follow Me."

Purpose may not be found in explaining the storm. Purpose is found in following Jesus through it. As I look back over my own life, I can see that God has never wasted a single storm.

Not one.

He has been working in me, shaping my heart to look more like Christ.

He has been working out of me, exposing fear, pride, self-reliance, bitterness, and everything else that kept me from depending completely on Him.

And He has been working through me, taking the very places where I was broken and using them to encourage others who are trying to stay afloat.

Little by little...

The waves become a classroom.

The shipwreck becomes a testimony.

The scars become a ministry.

Not because the suffering is good, but because our Redeemer is.

Peter understood something that day he couldn't have understood years earlier when he stepped out of the boat. Following Jesus wasn't only about walking on the water; it was about walking wherever Jesus led.

Across calm seas. Through raging storms. Into a life of serving others even toward a death that would glorify God. Every step had purpose because every step was taken with Christ.

Perhaps that's the invitation for us, too. We may not always find the purpose for every storm, but we can always discover His purpose in it.

Not by staring at the waves.

Not by comparing our story with someone else's.

Not even by demanding answers.

But by fixing our eyes on Jesus and taking the next step He places before us.

The waves may still come.

The memories may still ache.

But Jesus is still calling.

Still leading.

Still restoring.

Still giving purpose.

And His invitation has never changed.

"Follow Me."

One step at a time.

One wave at a time.

Until, by His grace, we discover that the very waters we thought would drown us have become the place where we know Him most deeply.

I Want to Walk on the Water