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Nine years ago, I had an identity crisis.

I was fresh out of university, with a degree I wanted nothing to do with, and utterly confused about what I was going to do next. Every day, I would pray and ask God to show me the one thing that I was supposed to do.

Oh, I asked. I prayed. I made such a mountain about my career path in my head, that it was all I thought about. I tied my entire existence and identity to what job I was supposed to have, or what field I was supposed to work in. In my head, my career and my purpose, were one and the same, and so for the longest time, I thought I was purposeless.

Time passed, and I started to gain more clarity on my career path. I had finally found this elusive thing I had been chasing for years, and I started to have some peace. Then things changed again. I left this career that I thought was it for me, and went out to explore the world. I told myself that I didn’t want to be a local champion – I needed to see what else was out there and take all the risks while I was still young.

So, once again my ‘purpose’ shifted. I started my own consulting outfit, took on different part time roles, and broadened my ‘career view’. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have zero regrets. I believe that every single step that I have taken has been ordained and directed by God. But I found myself back where I was nine years ago. Because my job/career = life’s purpose in my mind, any form of uncertainty meant that I was lost.

I wasn’t sure who I was anymore. I was doing things, but where they really THE things I was supposed to be doing? Was this purpose? Had I found it? I went back and forth with this in my head for a while. Today, I would feel like I had figured it out, but tomorrow I would be right back to square one.

In 2023, I started doing this thing called ‘Messages from my Daddy’. I would write down things God told me – sometimes in prayer, sometimes in worship, when I was in the shower, eating, in church, whenever. I would hear these words at different times, and I started to document them. It was through this that I discovered the mistake I had been making. My sense of purpose was so warped, that I thought what I did for a living was my identity, and If I didn’t have that figured out, then I was incomplete.

I know better now.

I have one identity – the identity of my father. Only a father has the right to name his child.

I am a Beloved son of God. A Beloved daughter of Abba.

And because my father has said that he is able to keep me from falling away (Jude 1:24), I don’t have to seek purpose anymore. It is finding me.

I’m turning 30 today. And I might not be sure of everything, but I am sure of the only thing that matters.