What does true pursuit of your destiny look like?
Why do certain people always seem to be moving on, moving forward and have things happen to them, while others seem never to have doors open for them?
Which one of these would you put yourself in?
How can you move yourself into the category of people who always seem to get opportunities?
An important key is understanding the role of being a ‘pursuer’ and what this means and what it looks like.
Let’s start with a recent personal story.
We (my husband and I) are in the process of moving. To make this next move is a fulfilment of a dream. A few years prior to this, we envisioned what we would like our life to look like. We visited different places and met people and experienced these places and decided on where we would most like to be.
To make a move at that time was impossible. But…. we made a conscious decision to not look at the impossibilities of our dream, but instead to shift the declarations to positive ones about the move we wanted to make.
Instead of saying: ‘This is where we would like to be, but we can’t be, because of x y and z’, we started saying; ‘This is where we will be in the future, God willing.’ In just over a year of changing our declarations, major obstacles that were in the way of us fulfilling our dream shifted and the way was made clear for us to proceed and make our first location move.
This is our first of many moves we are dreaming about. We have and still are envisioning, different places in the world where we will have a presence and to some degree settle, creating something of God’s kingdom in each place. We have spent time environing each location and what we will set up and where. It’s now started happening with us proceeding to location 1.
My point in sharing this process, is to get you to think. What would have happened if we had never envisioned our future? What would have happened if we never cultivated these dreams and desires in our heart? What would have happened if we didn’t think of what we really wanted to do for God’s kingdom? What would have happened if we never turned this into a vision? The answer is not much, perhaps even nothing.
We have pictures on our living room wall of all the three locations in the world where our hearts are drawn to have impact. We have discussed what each of us (as we are married), would like to see in each of these locations. We have talked about what a typical year would look like living across these three locations. We have envisioned what ministry we would be building and growing. We have thought about what people we would be impacting and developing to take what we have started further?
This is just a brief explanation of what I mean by ‘envisioning.’
Envisioning in this way, is a first step to pursue your destiny. Without this step there is no pursuit. Without this step you won’t begin to step out into the fullness of all you were created for.
The second phase is to start to activate small steps which take you towards fulfilling you vision. Our first small steps towards our move, were to start to look at properties, to investigate finances, to ask other family members what they thought and whether they wanted to come too!
In this second phase, you start with small steps, but the key is that you then keep them going, continuing with many small steps, consistently, all towards achieving your vision.
Many people carry assumptions of how God will work, and how He will release them to have greater influence. Many assume what will happen to them or for them. For many there is an apprehension to take any steps forward for fear of getting it wrong or moving outside God’s will. Some think that it is not their role to pursue anything, instead it is their role to sit and wait for God to show up and make it happen.
From our observations of many we have coached is that the result of this thinking is stagnancy. Nothing happens. Nothing gets going. Not only do the doors of opportunity not open, but even if they did, because you have not engaged in the pursuit and all that it grows in you, you are often not ready. It is in the pursuit that we get prepared, and we get ready.
The pursuit, the envisioning and taking small steps, grows parts of us that are essential for us to live out a big vision and the big purpose that God has for us.
A people without a vision perishes. (Proverbs 29:18)
Well, it is true that a person without a vision, perishes in a way too. Their heart is not engaged in their purpose to the level it needs to be and can be.
Pursuit is a multi-faceted activity. It starts with growing the vision, in depth, enjoying the process of dreaming and discovering what you really want. Doing this you can see every aspect of your idea and what you would like it to look like. You can envision what you want your idea to look like, in a year, 2 years, 5 years, 20 years and after you have gone.
Once you have envisioned, continuing the pursuit means creating a plan. This plan will have small bite sized steps that you can manage. I have found that it’s helpful to embrace a continued lifestyle of taking these small steps, prayerfully seeking God for strategy for the next set of steps.
Pursuit looks like continuing with steps even when the going gets tough, and it feels hard, and you feel tired. It looks like pursuing God during every part of living it all out; thanking Him, trusting Him, seeking His advice and input, alongside seeking advice and input from experts whom you need, that know what you don’t know.
It invariably will mean investing everything you have, your time, your money, your reputation. It invariably involves sacrificing, sacrificing comfort, safety, financial stability, proximity to family or friends.
The fact is pursuit contains all of this and more.
Most don’t realise what true pursuit and dedication to fulfil their destiny takes. But those who do realise and pursue it with all they have, live with a continual sense of purpose.
They enjoy contentment that they have been all they were created to be.
They also experience a closeness to God that comes as a great reward for stepping out and taking big risks to fulfil His call on their lives.
This closeness to God is different to what you will ever experience if you choose the easy road without risk.
People who pursue their destiny relentlessly, live the biggest adventure and have the most fun, growing and changing along the way, and finding out that with God and a willing heart, there are no limits to what is possible.