MarcAlanSchelske.com

Life at the intersection of Grace and Growth.

Looking for Purpose? Start with your Identity in Christ

You have a good and beautiful purpose. Part of the adventure of your life is to discover it.

Instead of pinning on a broken identity you’ve pieced together from scraps, you can discover an identity that will fit you perfectly because it comes from the Master Artist who made you. This sense of purpose will be life giving. It will bring you deep satisfaction even when the circumstances of your life are painful or difficult.

As you live within this sense of purpose, you will find spiritual vitality.

So, how to find it?

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Wandering Lost? Finding your Purpose will change that.

Are you taking the wrong exit?

I was heading to a lunch meeting with another car following me. We were headed to a restaurant a few miles away. While driving, I was thinking about a heavy conversation I had upcoming. Then I got a text message.

While I was multi-tasking, (don’t judge me!) a semi truck merged into my lane. It wasn’t dangerous; they were a ways ahead of me. I just hate driving behind trucks because I can’t see.

So, I changed lanes. My mind was busy changing lanes too. The upcoming conversation, the text, the truck, my irritation with the driver, all of these were buzzing together in my head. An exit approached. I took it, only realizing too late that it was the wrong exit with no convenient way to get back on the highway. I wound my way through side streets, making it to our destination after a few detours. We got there, but we took twice as long as we should have. The person following me could only assume I had no idea where I was going.

I took the wrong exit because my mind lost focus. With so much noise in my head, I was not present to what mattered at the moment I was in. I reacted. I reacted to the anxiety I had regarding the conversation. I reacted to the text. I reacted to the truck. This chain of reactivity took me somewhere I didn’t want to be — both literally and in my thinking.

This same thing happens in our lives on a much larger scale. Instead of taking the wrong exit ramp and looking foolish, the consequences are larger. We end up wading through decisions and painful relationship choices, we grind away our days doing things we weren’t made for, living out of integrity, all because we lost track of our purpose.

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You are a Hand-made Piece of Art

Looking for Character

Several years back, my wife and I spent a painfully large number of hours hunting for a new house.  After the 19th house, they all start to blend, and you can’t remember which one had the great deck, and which one had the kicked in sheet rock.

Very quickly, though, you become an expert on neighborhoods and home design.

I noticed that certain neighborhoods were full of cookie-cutter houses.  It didn’t matter which decade—there were streets with ‘60s single-level ranch clones, mirror image ’80’s split-level homes, and matching ’90’s McMansions each with “dry stack rock” veneer on the front.

These homes were built quickly with little care.  They used the same floor plan over and over again, only rotating it for variety.  None attracted me.

The homes that drew me in had something unique about them.  There was the 1908 farmhouse expanded multiple times over the years, with the remnants of an apple orchard in the back.  Another was a ‘60s ranch with the big windows that had a host of interesting built-ins, including a trap-door in the kitchen counter so you could drop your trash and recycling directly into bins in the basement.  We ended up buying an ’80’s two-story with big decks in the front and the back, and an inexplicable little inside/outside sunroom with a leak in it.

It’s these unique features–sometimes strange, sometimes wonderful, sometimes messy–that give the home it’s character.

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Feeling Insecure? Try Standing in a New Position

What do you do when you feel insecure?

I showed up at Walla Walla University, a small Christian school in the southeast corner of Washington, as a transfer student. I was moving geographically from Ohio to Washington and conceptually from architecture to theology.

You can bet not many credits transferred.  I was behind my peers.  I was far away from home.  I only knew a small handful of people. I was feeling insecure.

The key that opened the door for me was my guitar.  Every Friday night there was a gathering in the lobby of the men’s dorm.  A few guitar players led out in old summer camp tunes and a few worship songs.  A crowd filled the edges of the room, and the balcony above, and people sang for an hour, sometimes more.

The guys who organized this event were seniors, soon to graduate.  When they discovered that I played guitar, and had summer camp experience, they invited me to join them.  It was my way in!

Something to Prove!

Suddenly, I had a place.  I could contribute something that others wanted. My sense of security shot up.

That event was one of the building blocks of my college life. I met incredible musicians that I loved working with. I had a blast playing music nearly every week.  People started to know who I was. It was great. When I was in that room with the music and the crowd, I was on top of the world.  I felt at home, secure, worthy.

Put me in a room with musicians significantly better than me, or shift my schedule so that I couldn’t participate for a few weeks, and I started feeling insecure and antsy.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but something about my heart was being revealed.

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Praying for Open Eyes: See Yourself as God Sees You

The Homeless Princess

How do you see yourself today?  I’d like you to see yourself as God sees you.  Let me hold up a mirror.

One upon a time there was a princess. As you know, a princess is a daughter of the king. She’s a member of the royal family with position, authority, and a destiny.

But this princess didn’t know it. Or maybe she ignored it, or for some reason, didn’t believe it. I don’t know why exactly, but the truth is that she wasn’t living like she was a princess.

She didn’t live in the palace with her family. Instead, most nights she slept curled up in dark doorways and under bridges. She didn’t wear the fine robes that were hers by right. Instead, she was covered in scraps she found and patched together herself.

Instead of holding her head high, secure in her father’s love and her place in the family, she cowered. She hid in shadows. She avoided being known or seen. She believed that she was the only one she could trust. That sounds empowering, but in the end, it just means that you are terribly alone.

No one knows why she lives this way. Maybe she experienced some trauma years ago that wounded her so profoundly she blocked everything out and can’t remember who she really is. Or maybe shame from some terrible thing she’d done was blinding her, and she just couldn’t believe she was worthy. Or maybe she had just lost her way on some adventure and thinks that she could never be accepted home again.

She is simultaneously a homeless wretch and a beloved princess. She is lost, rejected, alone and at the very same moment, included, longed for and loved.

Her story could go either way. It could be a long, tragic tale of how she never discovers or accepts her real identity, wandering lost and alone her whole life. Or it could be a story of homecoming and healing.

The difference between those two endings depends on just one thing. Will she trust what the king says is true of her?

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Welcome!

Welcome to MarcAlanSchelske.com.

This blog is centered around helping you find belonging, redemption and growth, learning that you are God’s artwork made for a good purpose, and giving you tools to live that life with your whole heart, soul, strength and mind.

If it's your first time here, this is a great place to start.

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