Not Sure How to Answer the Question: “What’s Your Why?”

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I think about it. Years of traveling, working in network marketing, and even starting my own business…the same question always arose, “What’s your why?” I never knew what to say. I didn’t have a hard childhood or rags-to-riches story. I didn’t need to support my family or go through excruciating adversity to get where I am today. So I would ask myself the same question: what is my why?

I love to travel. I love to help people and to serve. I like making money…but you can make money doing just about anything. “Dig deeper,” they’d say, “there’s got to be something that’s driving you.” I never knew what, exactly. Until recently.

I decided that 2018 was going to be the year I discovered my why. I wrote it in my planner on every single page for the month of January—”Pray for why.” Then, the second week of January, I joined my second-ever adult Bible study.

I’ve gone to church my entire life, but as someone who travels full time, planting roots has proven a bit difficult. Although I knew I would only spend one month with these women, I decided to go anyway. Despite it being tax season (I’m an accountant). Despite the fact that I’m moving in a week (why even bother?). Despite the fact that I’m new to the church (I don’t know anyone). I felt the urge to go, and I joined.

The title of the Bible study, I learned upon arrival, was God of Creation. I found it ironic that we’re going to spend two-plus months studying Genesis one. “Who doesn’t know Genesis chapter one?” I thought. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…seems pretty self-explanatory. But is it?

God intentionally created heaven, with purpose. And then earth, with purpose. And He had a plan. He made the sky and light and the day and the night. There was a plan for all of it. God wasn’t brainstorming or creating a spider web of ideas. Everything was intentional. Why? To fulfill God’s plan, and to bring glory to Himself.

So it’s week two of Bible study and I’m sitting at my table of eight, chatting, in a room of 200 women when the woman on stage starts speaking. “Moses was speaking to the Israelites,” she says. “You’re going to be a people of one God, not like the people of Canan. And why did Moses tell them that? He wanted them to know their identity in God as their Creator.” She goes on, “But why did God create? For His glory. Have you ever wondered what your ‘why’ is on this earth?” My jaw nearly dropped. In fact, it did. Tears started rolling down my face.

“You were created for His glory, in order to fulfill His plan and His purpose. Do you need more of a why than that?” I couldn’t stop the tears. I’ve probably heard this before. In fact, I could quote many of the verses she was reading to support her statement. But it was in that moment that I knew God had answered my prayer. He was speaking to me. God existed before the beginning and made everything with a plan and a purpose. He gave me these passions and these gifts and these skills for a purpose. And everything in my life, be it intentional or unintentional on my part, has been preparing me to fulfill His plan and His purpose. I found my why in that moment, in that Bible study, in that church amongst a bunch of women I had never met.

Have you ever felt that? Purposeless?

That you don’t know your “why?” I encourage you, as a woman, to remember your identity in Christ. And to remind yourself of the divine plan and purpose.

It’s hard when we are consumed by our day-to-day and our families and our jobs and our passions. But they weren’t given to us as distractions or deterrents. If they aren’t the purpose, they are preparing us for the purpose. So that we may spread the love of Christ to everyone that we come in contact with. Live your life with intention! Because you are part of the divine plan!

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You’ll also like How to Discover Your “Why”, 10 Behaviors Found in the Inspired Woman, For the Woman Who Wants to be Strong, Does Finding Your Purpose Really Matter?, and 5 Simple Ways to Be a Dreamer and a Doer.
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