A Fork In the Wall

"But God did not place you on this earth to waste away your years in labor that does not employ His design or purpose for your life, no matter how much you may be getting paid for it." - Arthur F. Miller Jr., Why You Can't Be Anything You Want To Be

A not so related - but perhaps terribly related - thought on purpose this morning

I am feeling as if my career, and indeed my life, have come up against a large wall which I cannot get over, under, through or around. It's as if all my efforts just impact off its surface and come bouncing to the ground. In words I feel drained, confused, powerless, inert, mentally foggy, and directionless.

Every attempt to engage myself in my chosen career leaves me feeling empty. No matter how many time I try to engage myself, to do better, to get "charged" about what I'm doing, I always come back to the same feelings of disillusionment and unenthusiasm as I leave for the day.

The time may have come, it seems, to simply state that I'm really in the wrong industry and the wrong career field, that I may have gone as far as I can.

Ironically, it brings me no joy to write this. Why? Because to seriously contemplate this thought is to say that 43 years old, I have no idea what the next step is - except that it is not in the same direction that I have been proceeding all this time.

But Miller's quote above resonated with me last night after I read it. Regular readers of this blog know that for years I have struggled with the disconnect of my life between what I am doing, the money I am earning doing it, and if God would judge my use of His gifts in this position to be what He has designed me for. Miller's quote - which if I am honest, mirrors my own internal thinking - says no.

But that said, what next? I can't simply go leaping off a cliff with no parachute or destination in sight (been there, done that, have the scars to prove it).

Here's a concept: do I actually have enough faith in God that as I sincerely ask to be shown the next step, as I begin the process of re-evaluating my life (and make a priority of it), that as I choose a set of tools and follow them - really follow them, not just give them a passing glance - that as I do all this, God will truly guide me in what it is He has designed me to do?

Do I have that kind of faith? Can I? Because it's become readily apparent that where I am, what I am, how I am, is not really working.