First off, my purpose has nothing to do with being an ExChristian. It has, however, changed since I left Christianity. Christians may wonder what I could possibly have purpose about, except maybe to annoy them and continue spreading my heresy. But, sorry, that isn't my intention, though it may be a result for those believers reading my blogs. ExChristians may wonder if they will ever find a purpose again, and for that reason, I want to share my journey around purpose.
What is purpose? For some, it has to do with what we do and what impact we have on those around us. A deeper meaning, to me, includes why we are here, where we find meaning and reason, which then flows into why we do what we do. Purpose, for example, isn't just, for example, to save the seals, it is more of all inclusive feeling of I am here in this space and this time to be the best me I can and make a difference in the world by saving seals which brings me joy, meaning and satisfaction.
For Christians it is easy. Your purpose, along with the rest of life, revolves around God. You are to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself. You are also to share the gospel. Rick Warren made it a bit more complicated when he wrote The Purpose Filled Life. He said we are created by God to fulfill worship, unselfish fellowship, spiritual maturity, your ministry and your mission. I took those all, both simple and complicated, very seriously and strived to live up to my purpose personally and corporately.
I think this is one of the main reasons most Christians stay Christian. It gives them purpose. It gives them significance, purpose, and answers to why we are here. That worked for me for 55 years, until it didn’t. It’s hard to face the question that if there is no God, then why do I exist? Why am I one of the 8 billion people living here on earth now. Do I matter, or am I as insignificant as an ant, although, comparatively, there are 20 quadrillion of those on earth! (See bonus fact at the end of the blog) One can totally feel lost if they feel purposeless in the world, which can be termed existential nihilism. It can be worth pursuing the question of purpose to help you find meaning in this life. This is especially true after leaving a faith that defined it for you.
When I left Christianity, I experienced a stunning change. No longer was my purpose dictated by God, the Bible or the church. No longer was I obligated to my life of submission to God. I was suddenly free! My purpose was no longer God centred. My values changed, my spiritual gifts were not what I thought and the Holy Spirit wasn’t required to find my answers. But now what? Now was the time to re-examine purpose and find what it means for me in my life without faith. That is the journey I have been on, and I am inviting you to look with me at things I have learned about an ExChristian’s purpose.
Things I have learned about purpose:
It’s okay to not have purpose. This was a new thought to me. A purposeless Christian was confused at best, and at worst, sinning. But I have discovered many people don’t have purpose. It is hard to get a picture of how many, but I researched and people believe it is 75%-90% people who have no purpose. It’s the minority who have purpose! Feeling empty, confused and longing for more is normal. Even Christians have these feelings, which they cover with religious explanations. But that isn’t my purpose of discussion today. Lots of people are struggling. They work hard to survive, to get through the day while dealing with depression, anxiety, apathy, fears and more. If your life is getting through day by day then let that be enough. Don’t feel guilt or pressure to have your purpose all defined. That may come later or it may never come. Just live your life, be present and be okay with that. Purpose is not a necessity for a healthy or happy life. Our job does not necessarily need to be our purpose. It can coincide with our purpose but very many people work to make money so they can live their lives in meaningful ways. That is ok. You can find joy and meaning in people, in hobbies, in sports or in other ways. Meaning and moments of relaxing and joy are enough!
Finding purpose is a journey. We all change through life. There are ups and downs, there are major life changes. You may even go through major changes in belief like I have. Purpose comes and goes with those changes. When I was a young mom my purpose was to raise amazing kids. After the kids grew up, my purpose was to help others be spiritually mature and thriving in their Christian life. After deconversion part of my purpose is to help people know and love themselves and find their place in this world. There is a strong similarity yet a dramatic difference. There were also times of no purpose, confusion and searching in my journey. I expect the future will have new discoveries of purpose and times of no purpose.
Exploration and curiosity can be your purpose. We can go through life searching for beauty and joy. We can also look for excitement or ways to rest or ways to serve or ways to know ourselves and others better. There is no correct answer to what we need to find our purpose to be. We live in this moment of time and it is enough to just live our life day by day exploring. Take time to explore your own emotions and why you respond as you do. Explore other people’s emotions and be curious as to what is going with them. Open yourself up to curiosity about all sorts of things. If every person helped make the world a better place in some way, with some purpose, the world would be amazing! For you to make the world a better you can make yourself a better person. Then you will find the energy to make the world for one or many other people in a very natural way. We can't change the world, but we can make a positive difference in some lives. We can bring moments of joy to our corner of the world.
Find then live your passion and purpose. Take some time to think about the following questions. What are my passions? What do I value most? What are my strengths and weaknesses? What do I love doing? What matters most to me? What kind of things make me angry and how can I respond? How can I make my family, my community, my city, my province, my country, my world, even better? Has looking at these questions helped you understand what your purpose might be? Has it made you curious about any certain area? How can you exercise your purpose? Volunteer? Learn? Blog? Meet with others? When you find your purpose, it is time to unapologetically live and love what you can do! Feel pride that you can take steps to do things that matter, that you are unique and equipped to do things that you care about. What about fears and imposter syndrome? You may be struggle with feeling like you don’t know enough, have enough experience, have the authority or are the right person. You may have failed in the past and fear you will continue to fail. You aren’t alone in these struggles, we all feel them. The feelings won’t go away until you plow through and do the thing anyway. Experience and confidence will quiet those feelings so be brave and take the steps anyway. (Talking to myself here too!) And remember, failure doesn’t mean you will never succeed, so learn and go on.
Remain flexible with your purpose. The question we were asked and continue to ask children is what do you want to be when you grow-up? Society encouraged us to find the career that would define us. That career would give us the purpose that would lead us. But careers come and go. Phases of life change. Purposes change. We can have multiple or no purposes. I can list a bunch of purposes to my life: -I want to be the best me. -I want to be an amazing wife and mom. -I want to care well for the people in my life like my parents and friends. -I want to create beautiful art. -I want to blog about my life to help myself and others. -I want to enjoy reading. -I want to be at peace, to see beauty and find joy. -I want to write a book or course. That’s a lot of pieces of my life and sometimes I focus on them, and at other times not so much. The list has changed over time, although there is a core that doesn’t change. Some parts will continue to change as time passes. We have to give ourself permission to struggle as well as permission to succeed. One really helpful exercise I have done is to go through my personal history and written down what the different phases of my life have been and how they have been positive or negative based upon my experiences. When we look at the big picture we can see the fluctuations and realize we have been flexible and can continue to be so. Life continues to ebb and flow and so do we.
Don’t compare or judge anyones purpose or lack thereof. This one is really important. If you are comparing yourself to others with more or better purpose, please work really hard to stop. You are hurting yourself. We are all unique. We may see a purpose we admire, but let’s just stop with being happy for them for what they are doing. If it is something we want for ourselves then do the work to see if it is a good fit, and what we need to accomplish living that purpose. Don’t assume a person with a strong purpose that looks really good is actually as good as it seems. That person you see may have struggled a lot to get there. They may have imposter syndrome and fears. They likely need the encouragement you can give them. Maybe they would like to share their story of their hard work or sacrifices they made. We frequently judge those who seem like they have no purpose. They may seem lazy or messed up or selfish. But we don’t know their stories. We don’t know their struggles and the heartaches that led them where they now are. We don’t know their imposter syndrome and fears that may be stalling them. We don’t know whether our words of acceptance, compassion and encouragement might be what they need to get unstuck. Everyone has a past, present and future we only see a piece of them in this moment of time. Someone's purpose may seem too trivial, they may be interested in bigger houses, better cars, paying off loans, better vacations. But if that is their purpose, don't assume it is shallow, they are bettering their life for themselves and their loved ones and that matters.
Whether you know your purpose or not is not critical to living a good and meaningful life. Having a purpose can help you make priorities into how you are living your life and spending your time. It can help you understand what you need to do to be your best person. You don’t need God or the Bible to do this. In fact, they totally got in my way of me finding my personal purpose. Now I am free to live and explore my meaning and purpose. Not having a purpose or losing it for a time may mean you are working on just surviving and that is ok. More can come later. Surviving day to day is a win. Finding joy, peace and rest in life matters because you matter. Wherever you are in life, join me in being present. in feeling your feelings, knowing yourself and knowing you matter.
With love,
Val Martens
April 26, 2024 Today is our 38’th anniversary and i want to say I love you and thank you to my husband for the amazing support and love you have given me through all my phases of life! You are amazing and I love you Larry Martens!
Bonus fact ... there are 2.5 million living ants for every single person alive.
Bonus fact two ... You matter! This is true today and every day!
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