"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”
— Hebrews 12:11
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
— Frederick Buechner
PURPOSE FEELS LIKE RESPONSIBILITY
Last week, I was reading a post that explored the difference between how we expect something to feel and how it actually does. It was simple. Nothing flashy. But one line stopped me in my tracks. It read:
“Purpose feels like responsibility.”
I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
Because that line? It’s true.
We have a cultural myth. A beautifully marketed lie.
That once you find your “purpose”, everything clicks into place.
You’ll feel peace.
You’ll feel clarity.
You’ll feel alignment.
Your calendar will fill with meaningful work, your soul will settle, and your anxieties will evaporate.
But the problem many of us have encountered is that purpose rarely feels that way.
More often than not, it feels like weight.
Not the crushing weight of despair, but the steady, sacred pressure of something meaningful being placed into your hands. Something bigger than you. Something you can't ignore, and can’t fulfill in your own strength.
Purpose doesn’t always feel like freedom, it often feels like responsibility.
A holy tension on your shoulders you can’t shake. As if a load heavier than you could bear has been placed on your back.
WHEN THE MYTH OF EASE COLLAPSES
We’ve been sold a lie.
The lie says that when you find your purpose, life will flow.
That when you’re “in your lane,” everything will align.
That when you finally lock in on that one thing you were made to do, the road will rise to meet you.
But more often than not, purpose doesn’t feel like alignment. It feels like interruption.
Like interruption and invitation all rolled into one.
It’s the moment you became a parent and felt a weight you never saw coming.
It’s the moment you were called to lead and realized your own inadequacy.
It’s the moment God entrusted you with a story you never would’ve chosen, but now can’t imagine letting go of.
It’s not glamour. It’s not applause.
It’s weight. It’s holy. It’s an assignment.
It’s the thing you can’t unsee.
The ache you can’t shake.
The sacred fire in your bones that refuses to go out, even when everything in you wants to run.
THE SACREDNESS OF THE WEIGHT
Purpose, real purpose, is heavy. And that’s not a flaw…it’s design.
When God gives you something meaningful to carry, He’s not asking you to handle it alone.
He’s forming you through it. He’s shaping your spine for the weight. He’s teaching you what faith requires.
Purpose stretches you beyond yourself.
It calls you out of comfort and into formation.
It demands prayer.
It demands stillness.
It demands surrender.
Purpose is not the freedom to do whatever you want with your life, it’s the responsibility to steward what God has placed in your hands.
And here’s what’s beautiful: the weight of purpose doesn’t crush you. It keeps you close.
It forces you to shed the parts of you that were never built for the weight of calling.
It makes you depend on God in a way success never will.
It draws you out of performance and into prayer.
It breaks the illusion that you are enough on your own, and then invites you to be used anyway.
WHEN YOU FEEL THE WEIGHT
You may be doing exactly what you were made to do, and you may still feel exhausted. Still feel stretched. Still feel unsure.
That doesn’t mean you missed your calling. It may mean you’ve finally stepped into it.
If you feel the weight today, let me encourage your heart.
Don’t run from it.
Don’t interpret the heaviness as a sign you missed your calling.
Don’t believe that tension means you’re doing something wrong.
Don’t let the struggle lie to you.
The weight is part of the work.
It’s the classroom of purpose.
It’s the crucible of formation.
It’s the soil of dependence.
And if you’re honest, you already know this. Because the people who have made the deepest impact on your life weren’t the ones who always looked light and unbothered. They were the ones who showed up. Who bore something sacred. Who carried something heavy through joy and sorrow, strength and weakness.
And they didn’t just carry it… it often carried them. Purpose has a way of decentering the self. It roots us in a vision larger than our own singular story.
PURPOSE IS A TEACHER
Purpose will teach you to pray.
It will teach you to bleed.
It will teach you to show up on the days you don’t feel like it.
It will teach you to carry burdens that no one else sees and do it without needing the credit.
Purpose will show you that life is not about avoiding burdens, but bearing the right ones.
The kind that leave legacy.
The kind that build people.
The kind that shape your soul and those around you into something holy.
So friend, you feel that weight today? Don’t run.
You are not beneath a burden.
You are under an assignment.
A FINAL CHARGE
The world says to chase what’s light. God says to carry what’s holy.
The world says to do what feels good. God says take up your cross and follow me.
Purpose isn’t the absence of pain, it’s the presence of meaning.
So don’t tap out. Don’t trade the sacred for the easy. Don’t assume that the tension disqualifies you. More often than not, it’s the sign that God is drawing near.
He hasn’t asked you to carry it alone.
Let the weight drive you to your knees. Let the burden shape your prayers. Let the responsibility refine your character.
Let the weight become worship.
You’re not losing your way.
You’re stepping into it.
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