Don’t Just Survive, Thrive!

This is part of a message I shared at the recent Boundless Sisterhood “Thrive” conference. I’d love to share it at your next women’s event!

Don’t Just Survive, Thrive! – Living A Mission-Aligned Life

My life can be so busy! The world is chaotic, and at times that frenzy invades my life. One day at work, I began to feel overwhelmed by my growing work tasks and responsibilities in my personal life. I heard myself crying out, “get me off this merry-go-round!”

Women are pulled in so many directions. We’re daughters, wives, mothers, co-workers, friends, caregivers, and confidantes. The quiet in one ear is shattered by a scream in the other. Someone or something always needs our attention. And you, like me, might be overwhelmed and overtired! When that happens…

The circus with its monkeys becomes our own.

The problem with our busyness is that it occupies precious time we should spend on our God-given mission. And, when the messiness and frenzy of our lives take over, the mission gets shoved behind us when it should be before us. Our lives become a checklist; we’re just surviving, not thriving.

How can we realign our lives to live our God-appointed mission? For starters, we can follow the example of Jesus.

From the moment he began his ministry to his last breath on the cross, everything He did was mission aligned. His mission, to “seek and to save the lost,” was assigned to Him by God, His Father, and he lived intentionally every day he walked on this earth.

Jesus was busy and in demand. He healed the sick, cast out demons, performed miracles, taught in the synagogues, rebuked the stubborn teachers of the Law, and corralled the twelve disciples. Yet, we read about His activities in the Bible, and not once do we hear Jesus say, “Get me off this merry-go-round!” I believe we don’t because Jesus kept his priorities aligned with His mission.

There are only so many hours in a day, and if we’re not careful, we’ll sort our activities into baskets of what we need to tackle now, later, and impossible! But unfortunately, the baskets become just another checklist. Might I suggest that a better way to sort those activities would be to sort them into groups of “Mission-aligned” and “Responsibilities”?

What would go into the “mission-aligned basket? Any activities that are God-focused have eternal value, and we know we really should do. And the other basket? Activities we feel we must do, keep us busy, and may have little eternal value.

Every day of our lives, we live with two baskets. But our goal should be to reach into the mission-aligned basket first to live a life that is not just surviving but thriving. Then the merry-go-round might slow down, and the circus will leave town.