Finding Your Purpose

Finding Your Purpose

By Drenda Keesee

What is the #1 resolution you should have on your list this year?

In our culture, the new year marks a time for a resolution to rebrand ourselves and start fresh. Too often, we become very ambitious and desire to change nearly every aspect of our lives. I want to remind you that the most important resolution to starting your new year off right is to spend it with Jesus!

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the holidays, eating one (or ten) cookies too many, spending too much money on gifts for those we love, and putting off the consequences until January. Then January hits and the credit card bill is higher than you’ve ever seen it; and your work pants are too tight, so you have to wear a dress. That’s when we decide to get in shape, pay off the debt, and refocus our lives.

But what are we really refocusing on, and what is driving us to set the goals we are setting?

THE BEST MOTIVATION

If our focus is simply on being skinnier, surviving paycheck to paycheck, or buying a nicer house, it will never make us happy!

Buying a nicer house isn’t the goal; it’s the result of other goals being fulfilled! When you are walking out your purpose with God, everything else will fall into place.

The only lasting motivation is God. We can be motivated for short-term reasons such as financial gain, impressing someone, or looking like the picture perfect family. But once we reach that level, it often feels empty. When we reach the financial success we thought would fulfill us, our eyes are finally opened—they’re just things.

That’s why the #1 New Year’s resolution on your list needs to be to pursue a relationship with God that is deeper and more steadfast than ever before. 

When we rely on ourselves or worldly things to motivate us, the motivation will eventually run out. When we rely on the Holy Spirit to lead us, guide us, and motivate us, God’s grace is sufficient for us in every area of our lives!

Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

FINDING YOUR PURPOSE

Serving God is serving a purpose greater than ourselves. When we stop living for ourselves and start living for Him, there is a shift. We are no longer looking to be motivated to please people but to please God.

People will change their minds and opinions quickly, but God will always love and accept you. He will meet you wherever you’re at. And when we mess up, we can walk in His grace.

Romans 5:8 tells us, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He has already forgiven us and knows the mistakes we have made and will make in the future. Even with knowing all of our worst mistakes, He loves us anyway.

When God is our motivation and we are following His leading, we will have peace. When you are in God’s plan, you will have His peace and confidence that He is leading you. This January marks the start of the new year. I want to encourage you to let God be your source this year—your source of direction, of motivation, of everything. He will fulfill you, and He will lead you down the path He has for you.

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Ask God for a resolution. Trust that He has a plan for you and your life and He will work everything out in His timing when you are following and seeking Him!

Drenda Keesee’s contagious zeal and humorous personal experiences help make her ministry of spiritual, emotional and relational wholeness one that will bless your life and spark a new fire in your spirit.

A wife of over 30 years and a mother of five children, Drenda has ministered at churches, seminars, and conferences, and through the mediums of television and radio, for more than 20 years.

Her books, The New Vintage Family, Better Than You Think, and She Gets It are available wherever books are sold. In these heartfelt books, Drenda shares her personal journey and the life lessons that have brought her to where she is today, as well as practical answers that all people need to live a joyful life.

Drenda and her husband Gary founded Faith Life Now, a ministry designed to spread the message of freedom in the areas of finances, faith, marriage, and family. Tune in for their weekly messages here. Faith Life Now hosts conferences worldwide, and sponsors both Fixing the Money Thing, which Drenda co-hosts with her husband Gary, and Drenda.

Through their own life experiences, the Keesees have found the principles from God’s Word to be powerful and effective. At one point, Drenda was a young, suicidal feminist with no hope of ever being “good enough” for her own standards of perfection. She never wanted the “inconvenience” of a husband or children, and she was on her own path to success. But the stress of trying to achieve perfection and perform for love left her broken and used. She had success, but it was nothing compared to the pain and loneliness it had also brought.

That’s when God got a hold of her heart. It was there—at her lowest point—that she found the One who accepted and loved her, faults and all. Since that transformation, Drenda has had a passion to reach women who find themselves where she once was.

She married Gary after attending college, and there she found herself in a personal boot camp of sorts. She says, “I cried and told God, ‘I can do anything but be a wife and mother.’” She committed to learning how to do it God’s way. Through the many years of raising their children and struggling to make ends meet, Drenda learned from their mistakes. “I didn’t know how to be a wife and mother, but God saved our marriage, taught us how to parent our children for success, showed us how to have financial success, and then irony of all ironies, He called us to ministry.” It’s truly because of these life experiences that Drenda can now share so many insightful principles for people who are now going through the same struggles.