Tag: who i am

Exploring my meaning and purpose in life

~ K ~ 3 Comments

Who am I?

As a product of the instant gratification generation, I want to know the answer to who I am and why I’m here NOW. The two basic questions I grapple with on a daily basis are:

  1. What is my meaning in life?
  2. What is my purpose?

And when I say daily basis, I mean, daily as in every single day. Usually the standard answer I give myself is the first Q&A from the Westminster Shorter Catechism:

What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

I’m not sure how those in the Reformed faith applied that practically in 1646 but I’m trying to figure out what that looks like in 2010.

Does that result in a list of do’s and don’ts? There’s a call to holiness: how do I live that out? I’m called to be a Christian witness 24/7 but often feel like a practical atheist—speak of God, am interested in the things of theology but do not really talk about my faith outside of… my faith. Quite the impractical faith. But I’m not trying to get into a discussion of evangelism and witnessing right now. I’m trying to figure out how to accomplish my meaning and purpose in life by glorifying God and enjoying Him forever.

Glorifying God and enjoying Him look different for each person. We are not all the same and we are not called to be alike. While we all have the same chief end, how that plays out looks different in an individual’s life.

So in my life, what does glorifying God look like? Well, to be quite honest, I’m not so sure. As a Christian though, there are certain things I am called to:

  • Being a good wife
  • Seeking after God through prayer, Bible reading, worship with His community, and the preaching of His word
  • Exercising my spiritual gift of mercy (and supposedly encouragement) to those who need it (in and out of the body of Christ)

And how do I enjoy Him? You’ve got me. I know how to enjoy His creation but enjoying Him is an entirely different matter.

In search of an identity… Christianity.

~ K ~ 2 Comments

CrossWho am I… as a Christian?

As a Bible-believing Christian, this topic could be endless.

Under the banner of Christianity,  I am a number of things:

  • a sinner (Romans 3:23)
  • lost without Christ (John 14:6)
  • redeemed and forgiven of all my sins (Colossians 1:13-14)
  • God’s child (John 1:12)
  • bought with a price (I Corinthians 6:19)
  • a citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:20)
  • God’s workmanship (Ephesians 2:10)

The list goes on. But what does that mean for me as an individual?

I read God’s Plans For You by J. I. Packer in the hopes that I’d get some kind of divine revelation as to who I’m supposed to be. Nothing of the sort happened. Although I did gain some further insight as to what kind of individual God wants me to be.

An erroneous thought circulating in Christian circles is that, above all things, God wants us all to be happy. Above all things, God wants Christians to be holy. Achieving that apart from the guidance of the Holy Spirit is no easy task. What does the pursuit of holiness mean? (Another good book for me to read.) It means going after the things that are pleasing to God and pursuing the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

Here’s where God has led me in my Christianity so far:

That’s about as individual as it gets right now. There’s nothing profound or earth-shattering in this post. It’s simply an attempt to get me to figure out who I am as a Christian.

In search of an identity…

~ K ~ 1 Comment
Who am I?
What is my purpose?

questionThose two questions run through my mind at least once a day. (I’m probably providing a conservative estimate on that front.) Well, here are the basic answers to each question:
1. Who am I?
First and foremost, a Christian female; an adopted child of God bought with a price and a joint-heir with Christ.

2. What is my purpose?
To glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever. (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q1)

Those are the general things, applicable to a wide variety of Christian women. But specifically, who is the person that I’m supposed to be—the person no one else can be? What is God’s individual purpose for my life? Let’s start with a list of things that make up who I am:
Who I am
  • Christian
  • Female
  • Daughter
  • Wife
  • Cousin
  • Niece
  • Black
  • Writer
  • Friend
  • New Yorker
Really, is there much more to it than that?
Some of who I am is pretty straightforward in my opinion and does not need to be pursued much further, ie, female, daughter, wife, cousin, niece, friend. However (for me), it can get complicated when one of those things becomes a noun and the other becomes an adjective: What does it mean to be a Christian female? Or a Christian wife? Or a Black Christian? Or Black female? Here are the main topics I struggle with regarding my identity:

Christianity: What does it mean to be a Christian?

Race: What does it mean to be black in America, especially since I am first-generation American and am also married to a white American male?

Career: What kind of a writer am I? How do I pursue this, namely in a dying profession such as print journalism?

Location: My heart longs to be in no other place than New York but I’ve become content to live in Philadelphia. Am I still a New Yorker? Can I call myself a Philadelphian too now?

After exploring the main topics that plague my identity, I’ll try to address the issue of what my purpose in my life. I have the scary feeling, however, that the task will be much more difficult that trying to figure out who I am.