We are all designed to change the world

last year i almost moved to georgia.

for a little while i thought about moving to myrtle beach.

i even thought of seattle for about 30 seconds.

2013 wasn’t a great year for me. i’d even say it wasn’t even a good year for me. without realizing it was even happening, i went through what i can only describe as a quarter life crisis. i looked around and saw other people stepping into what they were made to do and i saw myself sitting on the sideline doing something that i was good at but didn’t feel like it was what i was made for.

so i started asking questions.

what am i supposed to do with my life?

can i do that where i’m at right now?

if not, where am i supposed to go?

am i even supposed to be in ministry?

those questions, along with countless others, is what i spent most of my time wrestling through. and if i’m honest, i lost most of those matches. i got beat up pretty good by my emotions, by my ego, and by what i can only describe as a misguided view of what growing up really looked like. i thought that i should have it all together because here i was 26/27-years old, married for a year and a half, out of school for five years, and looking around seeing other people being more “successful” in what they were doing.

if only it sounded so dumb while i was going through it.

looking back, i wish i would’ve handled things differently. i wish i would’ve interacted with people in a better way. i wish i would’ve dealt with the whole thing more maturely. what i don’t wish is that it never happened. i’m realizing now, being on the upswing for a few months, i needed to go through what i went through in order to be who i am today and to see things the way that i see them today.

when i set out to answer the questions mentioned earlier, i looked at everything. i looked at being a high school pastor at multiple churches. i interviewed to be the lead creative guy at another church. i investigated secular design companies. what i found out from talking to all of them was that while i wasn’t the best fit at the job i was at, i also wasn’t the best fit for any of them either.

there’s a line from a song that’s been stuck in my head for a while and it’s the title of this post: what if you’re just a vessel and god gave you something special. the following line in the song says, “it’s not yours to throw away.” what i’ve learned the most from this entire process is that i am just a vessel, i do have something special, and it’s not mine to throw away.

i have a skill set, a perspective, and a passion that only i have. no one else on the planet has the exact same combination of those three things as i do. want to know the coolest thing about that? you also have a skill set, a perspective, and a passion that no one else on the planet has. it’s what makes us all unique and special. when we can combine those three things and find how they’re supposed to play together, we are able to do things that are beyond our craziest dreams. after a year of searching, i think i’ve finally found out how those three things are supposed to play together in my life:

by telling stories.

today when i walk into the same place that i’ve been working for four years and sit at the same desk in front of the same computer, i’ll be walking in to a new job. i’ll be walking in to a job that didn’t exist when i first started looking for a new job last year. it’s a job that through other people chasing their dreams and what they’ve been created for ended up being created so that i can chase my dreams and what i’ve been created for.

what are you passionate about?

what are you good at?

what makes your view of the world different?

how can you combine those three things in a way that no one else on this planet can?

those aren’t questions that i expect you to have the answers to today. it took me over a year of struggles, messy relationships, and finding out things about myself that i didn’t like before i could even begin to find the answers. and i still don’t have them all.

whatever it takes, however long it takes, find out what that special thing is and pursue it with all you’ve got. it might be that you were made to love your kids better than anyone else and be the mom to them that no one else could be. it might be that you’re supposed to be the guy that works a 9-to-5 job and shows people who jesus is. it could even be something that you can’t even imagine right now. whatever it is, pursue it. go after it. don’t settle for anything less than exactly what it is you were made to do. it may not happen today. it may not happen tomorrow. however long it takes, don’t stop fighting to find it.

you are a vessel.

god gave you something special.

don’t throw it away.

say your prayers and take your vitamins.

have a nice day.

-jonathan