Taking Ground | Week 2
Day 3
“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” -Ephesians 2:10
There’s something deeply reassuring about Paul’s words in Ephesians. Before you ever took your first breath, before you ever made your first mistake, before you ever felt uncertain about your calling, God had already wired purpose into your life. You weren’t an accident. You weren’t improvised. You were crafted.
And yet, many people spend years trying to figure out, “What am I supposed to be doing with my life?” It’s one of the most common questions in the human experience. But Sunday’s message gives us a refreshingly simple framework, three questions that help uncover what God has already placed inside you:
What do I love?
What am I good at?
What does the world need?
When these three intersect, you don’t just find an interest, you find purpose.
But discovering purpose is rarely instant. It’s often the result of slow growth, ongoing self-awareness, and small, faithful steps of obedience. Joshua didn’t wake up one morning suddenly qualified to lead Israel. He spent 40 years watching Moses, learning humility, dealing with difficult people, solving problems quietly, and obeying God consistently. That long season wasn’t wasted, it was God shaping him into a leader worth following.
Again, from the story of Cleanthes, the student who was slow, quiet, and unremarkable compared to his peers. He didn’t have a wealthy background or natural brilliance. He wasn’t the person anyone expected to stand out. In fact, the other students called him “The Donkey” because of how slowly he learned.
But there was one thing Cleanthes had that the others didn’t: consistency. He showed up. Day after day. Year after year. Listening, processing, absorbing. And because he was so steady, so faithful, so reliable, his teacher eventually chose him as the successor over all the “brilliant” ones.
Purpose is often discovered through steady, humble faithfulness.
You may not feel like the most talented person in the room. You may not have the loudest voice or the flashiest gifts. But if you’re willing to show up and give God your yes, again and again, He will shape your life in ways you can’t imagine.
Sometimes the world will underestimate you. Sometimes you will underestimate you. But God never does. He knows exactly what He placed inside you.
One of the lines from Sunday’s message is especially grounding: “In order to grow ourselves, we have to know ourselves.”
That’s such an honest and freeing truth. You don’t discover your calling by copying someone else. You discover it by paying attention to how God has uniquely wired you, your passions, your strengths, your burdens, your abilities.
And once you begin to recognize those things, purpose naturally begins to take shape.
Joshua eventually stepped into leadership not because he chased a title, but because he had become the kind of person God could entrust with one. The purpose isn’t about becoming impressive. It’s about becoming faithful. It’s about letting God form your character long before He enlarges your influence.
So maybe the takeaway today is this: You don’t have to chase purpose. You simply need to keep walking with the One who created yours. If you stay faithful, you’ll find yourself exactly where God always intended you to be.
