Week 1

Welcome to the Pathway to Purpose for Women study! What an exciting book to read over the summer. Let me know if you need a book, or order one from christianbook.com. Once you get your book, make sure to read pg. 249 and make sure where you stand with Christ, beause He will be leading our journey.

Acts 2:28
'You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of gladness with your presence.'

We’re going on a journey together to find our purpose. Don’t be surprised at what it will be. It may be something so simple, you wonder why you didn’t see it before. It may be something so astounding, that you never would have thought of it. (And you wouldn’t have without the Holy Spirit!)

Know one thing: your purpose is uniquely tailored to all you have been through in life up until now. All your life up until today has been a holy boot camp. I don’t know about you, but some days it feels like a full-pack, 50 mile run at Camp Pendleton.

That full pack you’ve been lugging around—it’s emotional baggage. It’s something that will weigh you down as you try to make your way across the river of life. Why not unload that pack and use the rocks as stepping-stones to get across, instead of carrying them around and having them hold you back?

Where do you stand?

• I’m confused about what God wants me to do with the rest of my life. I just don’t get it.
• I’m ready to get to work; I just don’t know where to start.
• There is no doubt in my mind as to my assignment, but I am having a great deal of difficulty focusing on it, getting organized around it, and not being afraid of it.
• I am already doing what I was called to do; however, the rest of my world is somewhat out of balance or alignment. I have little time to breathe; this is no way to live.
• I am doing what I am called to do. There is a balance to my life. I still need help to face tomorrow’s headaches or crises.

We're all going to be in different stages, and that's OK! Let’s check over the table of contents together. Depending on how the chapters read and our discussions go, I am figuring on one chapter a week after this week. So count on about 12 weeks for this study.

We need to stick together and move forward. We will get through this. Anything shared in this group will go no farther than this group. We need to know it is a safe place to be.

Let’s read a little bit about a journey by a group of people in Moses’ time.

Numbers 13:25-33 Spying out the land of milk and honey-reporting back.
Numbers 14: 1-4, 20-24 Pardon and rebuke from the Lord. Why Caleb was spared from the rebuke.

God is telling us to scout out the land—our life. When we find our purpose, we will arrive at our Canaan. But we will have doubts and we will have people telling us we’re going the wrong way. If we believe the lies, we will grumble like the Israelites and find ourselves back to wandering in the wilderness…searching for purpose. (Could this be why many people have mid-life crises around 40? They haven’t found their purpose so they grumble and God keeps them wandering!)

God puts a longing for purpose in our hearts for a reason. It’s a homing device of sorts—our GPS. We can plug it in and listen to the directions, but unless we go forward, we’ll never make it to our destination: our purpose. Finding our purpose will bring us closer to God, we’ll be working with God to bring about his will, and others will see it and be drawn closer to God. Everything will point to God--not to us.

There will be traps along the way. Matthew 6:1-5 We will hold each other accountable to staying away from the “all about me” trap.

James 1:22-25 We learned about this verse in our last study. We need to take daily doses of scripture. I challenge you to try memorizing scripture. I don’t mean several verses or chapters…I mean one line at a time. This will be our mirror that we look into for our purpose. As we read, God’s word will scrub away the “me-ness” and renew our minds to align with God’s way of thinking. (No more stinkin’ thinkin’!) Try memorizing the main scripture for the book: Acts 2:28.

Psalm 92:12-15 Finding our purpose will be a sort of Fountain of Youth.

Colossians 1:9-10 Finding our purpose will please God and increase our wisdom.

Galatians 6:9-10 Finding our purpose will not wear us down.

Ephesians 2:8-10 Finding our purpose will be stepping into God’s plan for us that He created when He created the world.

Are we ready? We don’t have a GPS to plug in for this journey. We have someone who already knows the way: Christ. May the Holy Spirit be our guide as we unpack our stepping-stones and start using them to get across to our Promised Land!

Homework:

1. Read chapter 1 & 2
2. Something to think about: What would you do with your life if you had unlimited wealth?
3. Try memorizing Acts 2:28 'You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of gladness with your presence.'
4. These spiritual gifts questionnaires may give you an idea of your strengths and weaknesses:
   http://www.buildingchurch.net/g2s-i.htm
   http://www.elmertowns.com/spiritual_gifts_test/