Google Unanswerable Questions This Instant!

You know you have a problem when you find yourself Googling: “What should I do with my life?” 

Google, apparently, is just not the fountain of answers it’s cracked up to be.

I was at a young professionals’ leadership development course the other day. About 50-60 of us from all around town crammed into a board room in the first of several monthly meetings. The instructor had us break into groups so we could talk and get to know others we’d never met before. I loved my group. Three guys and three gals. All were people-people and we really hit it off. I even learned that my voice makes a good first impression. Something led to someone saying my voice was soothing or attractive or had great cadence or nice inflection … or some kind of combination of those. One person even ventured to say that I (rather, my voice) should be on OPB. Okay! I will take these perfectly random perfect-stranger compliments.

Anyway, I digress. Later in the class we were told to draw our passions on the back of our name cards. I drew the easy ones – a tree and mountains and a river (outdoors), a running shoe (health), and a cross (my faith). Then I just kind of sat there. I looked over at my new friend, Nate, on my left. He was looking off into space. I looked around at everyone else in our group. They were furiously drawing. I looked back at Nate. He looked at me.

“Uh…..”

“I know,” I said.

We just sat there, passionless.

Then he said, “What if my passion is finding my passion?”

“Totally,” I nodded without missing a beat. “I get that.”

So he drew (wrote) just that on his card.

I didn’t want to copy him, so I continued to sit there. But what he said resonated with me on a thousand levels.

I was never the five-year-old who knew I wanted to be a nurse when I grew up. Or the fourth grader who so adored my teacher that it sealed my fate as an educator. No, I went to college and majored in communications simply because I needed all the help I could get communicating with others!

Today, finding my passion is exactly what I am passionate about. I spend countless hours on this trail. I don’t know what it is I’m looking for exactly, but I am looking, and looking hard for it!

Where does one look to find their passion? Well, Google is instinctively and obviously our first choice. Right? We Google everything these days. But when that turns up fruitless, maybe we turn to other people. Talking with those you’re closest with and asking for feedback is a foolproof way to gain invaluable insight. Then there are books. A friend just sent me “48 Days to the Work You Love” and I can’t wait to unearth some gems of direction there. Then there are the heaps of introspection that come all too easily for the introverts among us.

But what about the Source, the only One with any kind of answers worth listening to at all? The One who made you, formed you, and Himself created all your desires and longings – realized and unrealized – within you? When life’s big questions loom like stormy rain clouds damp and dank over your head, will you set aside your technology and media long enough to tap into your Creator Himself? I’m convinced He has something specific to say to each of us. It may take time, but one day I believe the answers will be clear, and tangible. 

In the meantime, I’m going to go Google a recipe for dinner.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock ad the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7

“ … the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Colossians 2: 2-3