Life, liberty, and the pursuit of.....what exactly?

Life's a curious thing. Especially when you're 25, have (by most standards) a great job, good family, you're physically fit, and life generally seems to be going you're way. On the surface, it seems as though one as sort of acheived the American Dream. All the things you're supposed to aspire to as a mature young adult. Yeah, sure, marriage and kids are part of the equation for many people, but it's not to say that "happieness" cannot be acheived in their absence.

I am that person these days. I do have a great job. I have supportive family. I am, for all intents and purposes, physically fit. I have goals. I get to travel frequently. I play a role in a local church. But there are times at the end of the day that I question what exactly it is that I do. I basically market products to the extremely wealthy. Not exactly soul-satisfying work. Don't get me wrong; I am totally blessed to have the job that I do, but in quiet moments I can't help but acknowledge that life is about more than the 9-5.

I do feel the most purposeful when I am in a church leading worship. I'd rather do that than anything else, I think, but a girl has to support herself somehow! It's not the easiest thing, as a woman (please pardon any feminist undertones), to find a job as a "worship leader", even in the 21st century. This, of course, assumes that I want to be on staff at a church...which isn't necessarily even true. I'm sort of in a holding pattern where the Church is concerned (specific bodies excluded; merely speaking in general terms). It's as if the church and I have been married for 25 years and are now at a place of silent indifference. We acknowledge that we've fallen out of love with each other, but divorce doesn't seem like the best plan either.

All this to say, I want to do something more eternally minded, but recognize at the same time that getting a job at a church somewhere doesn't exactly solve the problem of discovering and walking in my life purpose. As a dear friend pointed out the other day, you can be just as dissatisfied with your life in a "spiritual" job as an unspiritual one. And it's true.

In a conversation with my sister earlier, I pointed out to her that life is so not about what great things we do or who we marry or where we go. I honestly believe that God doesn't really even care. What he does care about is how much we look like Jesus. All of life, its hardship and its triumph is about molding us to be more like Christ and once we begin to look at life through that lens, things begin to make more sense and are ultimately more satisfying.