What you're made for

By Liz Simpson

Ever been in that situation where you’re getting to know someone new, maybe at a party, or at work and you start to feel nervous as the conversation goes on because you know what question they are going to ask next? You get past the “Hi my name is” … “I’m from…” wait... Here it comes…
“So what do you do?”

Yes... THAT question. This is the question that used to make my stomach do somersaults every time someone asked me it. For some time my answer was “I’m an art student” to which the conversation would then progress to whether or not I brought crayons with me to college. Then it moved on to “I work in a bank” (you can imagine the conversation that followed that one). Finally it went to “well I’m doing an internship but actually I’m not sure what I want to do”. 

People around you usually want to know what career you’re in, what part of society you contribute to and sometimes even what you’re passionate about. But what happens when you don’t know any of these things about yourself?

No one ever prepares you for this stage of life, when you feel stuck in the “in between."  Perhaps you have a vague memory of lost or forgotten dreams you used to have as a child but due to circumstance these dreams never quite moulded into reality. You feel a ridiculous amount of pressure to label yourself as something, just to make these conversations easier, never mind the lie that keeps going round in your head that “you’re a failure."

It seems that society is screaming so many of these labels at us, we are never sure which one is best. The world is telling us that “we need” money, fame, beauty… and most of the time we’re grabbing onto so many ideas because we don’t have a clue what we want or need ourselves. The real question we are wrestling with here is not "what am I doing"….but "who am I?" "How do I fit in?"

Let me save you some time here. You were never made to fit in. You were born to stand out.

It’s who you are, not what you say and do, that counts. Your true being brims over into true words and deeds. 

Luke 6:43  “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.

When people would say “Oh you’re an Artist” I would often question did I really want to be an artist and was this really who I was made to be? I never really liked the whole stereotype or even the idea of cutting my ear off anyway…

Last July when I was coming to the end of my youth internship, I kept asking God, "what is your plan for me?" "What do I do next?" This time I felt God spoke to me and said “Just be”. This was the first time I realised I needed to not have any distractions from God- no clutching at straws trying to be something I wasn’t. 

God was calling me to not “do” anything, and I was so afraid. I was afraid I wouldn’t know how to fill the time. Although…I’m not going to lie to you, at first it was great- it felt like a holiday, but as time drew on, it grew harder and harder to say no to things I would have loved to be involved in and help with, but God kept saying “Come find me”.

When I came to spend time with him, initially I felt stumped. I wasn’t sure what it looked like to spend alone time with God other than reading my bible and praying (which is great) but I am not the sort of person who could do that all day long. I wasn’t sure that just being me or doing what I have always known to love would be enough for Him. However, there was no other version of me left that I could be. I started to do the things I always loved doing but didn’t always get (or make) time to do, like picking up my paint brush once again.


In doing these things I started to feel more of God’s presence than I ever had. As if God was doing this with me. I felt more confident and that I could let go of the anxiety and uncertainty my future held. Through creativity, I felt a connection to God I rarely felt before. These times started to become my times with God, my intimacy with him.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13

What if we were made for more? More than expectations, more than what society tries to constantly label us as. God is not a God that can be labelled or contained in a box, and if we carry Him in us and are also made in His image, then why would we do this to ourselves? What if what we were made to do was never meant to fit into the ideals and confines of a job description?

To truly know who you are, you have to know who He is, and what He is speaking over you. Then and only then will the world around you be transformed. You see, once I let go of what other people wanted me to do, or what society made me think I “should” do, I found the Author of my story: The God who had already called me into being. When we let go and let God, we start to become the person we were made to be, the person that’s been under there the whole time.