When You Lose Your Why…

This post is more for me than for you…

Have you ever caught yourself in the captivity of activity? Are you in the middle of a whirlwind of doing this and that without a compelling sense of “why-ness”?

Can I just let it all hang out in front of you friends? I need a space to brain dump all of the “what” activities I have going on so I can then ask the “why” question. Here is a word-cloud of my brain dump.

I am asking myself why I am doing some of the things in that word cloud at this point. Mine may be comparatively small to some of your clouds. I encourage you to at least make a list of your involvements so you can ask the same question as I am asking myself…Why am I doing all of them?

When we lose our WHY we lose our WAY!

Knowing the why that drives our what can bring peace to our daily routine.

Jesus clearly knew His why…”For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 10:10

This was Jesus’ mission. And because He knew it, it prioritized all of His “whats” or activities.

Again, this post is more for me than for you and I am reminded of my own personal mission statement:

SHINE

S – Share Jesus

H – Honor People

I – Impact People

N – Never Settle

E – Establish People in God’s Word 

I need to examine my “whats” through the lens of this mission statement God so firmly planted in my mind a few years ago. If I am not impacting people in my own family or honoring my first commitments of Christian, mother, wife, and grandmother, why am I doing the other things in that word cloud?

Yes, a sense of why-ness. If we never stop and ask ourselves why, then we will be held in the captivity of activity. And that is not how Jesus called us to live. He called us to live the abundant life (John 10:10).

My “whats” (activities) flow from my “whys” (purpose). It will take courage to take some holy scissors to cut out some of the why-less activities.

There are more good activities to be involved in than any of us can possibly do. We must prioritize our yeses so our energy is not so divided that nothing we touch excels.

What about you? Do you need to join me in the pruning back of “whats” so that all which remains will flourish?