Purposefooled: Why Chasing Your Dreams, Finding Your Calling, and Reaching for Greatness Will Never Be Enough

By Kelly Needham

Author and Bible teacher Kelly Needham reveals how we've been fooled into chasing meaning in all the wrong places, identifies the source of our hunger for the extraordinary, and shows us the steps we can take today to build a purpose-filled reality without turning our lives upside-down.

Many of us are exhausted from dreaming big and chasing the extraordinary lives we long for, but when we try embracing the everyday and find meaning in the mundane, we fear we're settling for a boring life. Are we missing something?

Kelly Needham has been the keynote speaker, the person folding T-shirts backstage, and the mom dealing with the ups and downs of daily life. By sharing her experiences with both the extraordinary and the humdrum--and wrestling with feelings of disappointment along the way--Needham helps readers discover for themselves the truth that changes everything: we weren't made to do something, but to know Someone. And it's that Someone who can infuse our lives with infinite purpose and meaning. In Purposefooled she explains

• why we feel like we were made for more and shows us the freeing answer to our longings,
• the ways modern technology affects our desires and dreams--and how to live free from its pressures and pitfalls,
• how familiar Bible stories reveal that being a world-changer is more accessible and simpler than we think,
• why we need to reclaim our imaginations from culture and steward them with eternity in mind, and
• what it looks like to live a deeply meaningful life today instead of wearing ourselves out trying to reach the next big thing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Aug 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781400241637

Kelly Needham

Kelly Needham is a servant of Jesus Christ, a student of the Bible, and COO of her home, where she lives with her husband, Jimmy, and their five children. She is the author of Friendish: Reclaiming Real Friendship in a Culture of Confusion and has been a contributing author to many other books, including Faithful and Beautifully Distinct. She has served on staff at two different churches, serving in youth, college, and women’s ministry. Kelly currently coleads a women’s teaching program at her church, training women to accurately handle the word of truth and cohosts the Clearly podcast with Jimmy. Whether writing or speaking, Kelly’s aim is to convince as many people as possible that nothing compares to knowing Jesus.

Book preview

Introduction

Meaning. Significance. Purpose. My interest in this subject, like most things, came from my personal need for it. Like many millennials, I was groomed for greatness. It was never a question of if I would achieve greatness, but when.

It was all very subtle, of course. Those seeds of greatness had been sown in my heart without my notice. I didn’t grow up with big goals or dreams. In fact, the only thing I was sure I wanted to be when I grew up was a mom, the ultimate mundane job. So when my life slowly swelled with mundane tasks, I was shocked by the terror that tackled me. All these small and boring tasks in my life were a cage, keeping me from flying in all the glorious ways I knew I could.

The mundanity was smothering, and I was terrified it would suck the life out of my soul. And so, in a desperate attempt to survive with my heart and mind intact, I asked God why this should be my lot. Wasn’t I more important than this? Didn’t I have more to offer the world than this? Was I being punished? Was I being disciplined by the Lord for my prideful desire to be seen and noticed? Was I being trained? Were these mundane things only a means to an end, a training ground for me to achieve my true purpose in life? To do bigger and greater things?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is, I have fought some intense battles with mundanity. Can I tell you about the two that shaped me the most? The first came with marriage and the second with toddlers.

I was raised by parents who believed I could do anything. They cheered me on and affirmed me in every endeavor I engaged in. And as I grew under their affirmation, I came to believe it too. I could do anything!

This healthy self-confidence attached itself to my growing desire to live for God. He had grabbed ahold of my heart when I was an awkward junior high kid, and I had since lived with an earnestness to use all I had to further his kingdom. I regularly shared my faith with peers at school, led faith-based student organizations, was on the leadership team in my youth group, and signed up for every mission trip. I could do anything! And I wanted to do it for the kingdom of God!

Then I married the only man I had ever met who shared my deep desire to live for God. And though we met as fellow college students both pursuing relatively ordinary careers (me in the world of finance and my soon-to-be husband as a history teacher), God quickly redirected our path. Jimmy, being a gifted vocalist and songwriter, was offered a spot on a record label. It seemed so obvious that this was God’s path for us, so we stepped in with joy and peace.

We quickly fell into a new normal that fit like a glove. Jimmy was writing songs and performing on the weekends and I was able to use all my administrative and financial skills to manage the business side of this new world. It was a perfect fit.

But then things got real. At each one of his concerts, it was apparent that I held a less important role. I was bombarded by comments like You’re so lucky to be married to Jimmy! Jimmy’s music has changed my life. God’s going to do big things through him! Each comment landed like a wave and slowly eroded my sense of value.

The message was clear: What Jimmy is doing matters. It’s effecting change in people’s lives. Me on the other hand? No one really cared that I was there or what I was doing while I was there.

He taught the gospel from stage. I taught volunteers how to use our credit card machine.

He wrote music that helped people through suffering. I wrote inventory lists and contracts.

He did interviews. I booked travel.

People wanted a picture with him. I took the pictures.

It’s not that I thought my job was pointless. Someone had to do it. And if it wasn’t me, we’d have to hire someone to do it. I was absolutely necessary to the functioning of this world of music ministry. But folding T-shirts didn’t seem to impact anyone’s life. Sure, I had to train the volunteers to run our merchandise table, but how did that change the world for the kingdom of God?

Besides that, I had my own desires to teach people about God. At every concert those desires felt like a poison ivy rash, begging for my attention, screaming to be used. And every envious thought I entertained just scratched that itch and made it worse.

Why isn’t it me? When will I get to do the work that really matters? Am I destined for a life of administrative tasks that anyone could do while my passions sit unused on the shelf? Is it even right to desire a greater role than the one I have? This season was one of wrestling that, like our patriarch Jacob, left me both injured and blessed. More on that later.

The second battle came after the birth of our second daughter.

As the years went on, I had begun to find occasional opportunities to teach and write about the God I loved alongside Jimmy’s music career. But my primary contribution remained the minutiae of booking flights, updating websites, and ordering merchandise. Then the first major shift came: I was offered a job in youth ministry at our church.

I loved my new ministry job and thrived there. It was where I cut my teeth in teaching, leading, and writing. But only two years in, I quit as we prepared to move from the Houston area to Dallas. And honestly, I was okay with it. I missed my job and my students but felt confident that the move was right for our family. Plus, our first daughter had just been born and I was grateful for a season to learn to be a mom and soak in all God had for me.

Soon after we moved, a month before our oldest turned one, I found out I was pregnant again. We were thrilled and soon welcomed another precious but needy human to our lives. Everything was wonderful until Jimmy released his next record. It took him back on tour and left me with two children in diapers. My days were no longer defined by what I accomplished but rather by how much chaos I could contain. Could I get rid of the dirty diapers, dishes, and clothes faster than new ones replaced them? Each day was another round of whack-a-mole that felt as exhausting as it felt futile.

Jimmy and I would talk every evening to connect with each other and share our days. While I was covered in spit-up and needed a shower, he was being dressed by stylists and seeing people put their faith in Jesus. I was eaten up by envy. I loved our daughters, and I didn’t even want an out. I wouldn’t have handed over the care of our children if it had been offered. But I longed to know that the toil I was doing mattered. And honestly, it just didn’t seem to matter. It had to get done, yes, but was it meaningful?

And so I found myself back on the wrestling mat, but this time with more fire in my eyes. I looked those mundane tasks in the eye and determined that they would not kill my joy. But how? Did it even matter whether my kitchen was clean or dirty? Did the energy I exerted in folding tiny clothes accomplish anything in the long run? Would my efforts leave any lasting impact on the world I so longed to change for Jesus? And who would see the fruits of my work except two sets of tiny eyes that were more entertained by spilled milk than an organized pantry?

These battles with the mundane transformed me. Through each season of wrestling, God shifted my perspective. Through my husband’s music career and my time in youth ministry, I had tasted life on the stage, doing the work that matters. And through my role as a T-shirt folder and diaper changer, I had tasted life in the audience, watching others from the sidelines.

But as I took my fears and questions to the Lord, something new happened. He took me off the stage and out of the audience and led me underneath the auditorium to examine the foundations that held it all together.

He opened my eyes to things I hadn’t been able to see when I obsessed only about my position on the stage or in the audience. The truths I discovered under the auditorium have since stabilized me, strengthened me, and given me an indestructible joy that has enabled me to live with purpose and contentment in every day of my life and in every task set before me, however big or small.

It is my sincere hope that this book will forever change how you view your day-to-day living. I hope to light your imagination on fire so you never again see in the same way. So grocery carts, unanswered emails, dirty dishes, children’s backpacks, doctor’s appointments, worship and Communion, board meetings and budget meetings, podcasts and platforms never look the same again.

You should know that it is my goal to set you free. Much of our modern understanding of what it means to live a life of meaning and purpose is extremely burdensome. We often cannot see or name the burden placed on us because the promises of purpose-filled living blind us to the heavy load we carry. We are starved for purpose, and so we run, chasing the carrot on the stick, until we collapse in exhaustion.

In addition to a new vision and liberty, I also want to help you not waste your life. The culture around us has no understanding of eternity and no sense of the ways of God, so it sees life as valuable only so far as it has measurable effects in this life and benefits the felt experience of the individual. If my life doesn’t feel good to me, it is a failure, I am told. If my life doesn’t have any measurable effect now, it is a waste. But measurable results often mask the nothingness underneath. And when our activity is driven by our own felt happiness in the here and now, then, according to Jesus, we are wasting our lives (Matt. 16:25–26). It may feel good and it may feel productive, but it’s a deception. A child spinning the wheels on his bicycle may be using a lot of energy, but he isn’t going anywhere.

The culture does have one thing right: we really were created to live deeply purposeful lives. But have we been purposefooled? Have we been deceived into chasing meaning in all the wrong places? There is a fog around us, clouding our vision. I believe the truths in this book will clear the air so we can resist the cultural casino that looks glamorous and promises profits but actually drains us of all that is valuable. I believe the truths in this book will set us free to live the deeply meaningful lives we were made for. I believe this because they’ve set me free. Can I share these treasured truths with you?

Section 1

Our Purpose Problem

The Monument

Nothing they set out to do will be impossible!

Gen. 11:6 NLT

The laughter of children was sprinkled between the sounds of hammering and scraping. Javan looked over to see two boys running across a half-built wall, playfully swatting at each other with sticks. He smiled to himself. They just couldn’t stay away. And who could blame them? It was all too exciting. Nothing like this had been attempted before.

Javan kept in step with Elishah as they pulled the sledge of bricks through the growing city. This was their tenth trip from the kiln to the middle of the city and their pace had slowed.

Do you think they’ve made the foundation wide enough? Javan asked. I mean, it seems wide enough now, but the wider we make it, the higher we can build.

Seriously, Javan? Elishah responded, out of breath. I can barely see the other side of it from here. It’s plenty wide! That’s why we put Raamah and Sabteca in charge. They’ve got more ambition than the rest of us combined.

What a pain growing up with those guys, right? Javan chuckled. But at least they’re finally working together. Let’s leave these here. I think they needed more bricks on this side anyway.

The two men lingered for a moment to catch their breath and watch the team working on a portico nearby. The city really was coming together. Pillars, houses, gardens, stables. It barely resembled the open plain they had seen just a few years earlier. But the crowning glory of this new city would be the tower right at the center. The base of which Javan and Elishah leaned against now.

When Raamah had first suggested a city to prevent them from being scattered, it came as a surprising relief. They had been migrating for so long—a lingering tradition from the days of Noah—that no one had ever thought to settle down. Plus, what might they accomplish without wasting so much energy packing up and moving every few years? Yes, God had told Noah to multiply and fill the earth, but surely they had spread out far enough. Surely they could move on from God’s goals to achieving some of their own.

But the communal excitement was rooted in something bigger than new buildings. For the first time in human history, men were working together instead of killing each other.

Everyone knew the stories. The banishment from the garden. The blood of Abel. The boasting of Lamech. The bitterness of God’s annihilation at the flood. Their history hung over them like an ominous cloud. There were no nights of nostalgic reminiscing, no stories of grandparents’ former glory—only attempts to drown out the sour taste of war and death.

But now, something different was happening. Swords had been laid aside for hammers. Spears traded in for trowels. It was a new era. The strength of mankind was being put to better use. And they were surprised at what they could accomplish when they worked together. No longer would they feel dependent on God; they could meet their own needs and provide for themselves. The sensation of being a part of something extraordinary bound them all together without words.

Not only that, but they could leave a better legacy for their grandchildren. A legacy of the greatness, strength, and unity of mankind. And not just a legacy but an actual physical remnant of what they had accomplished: a tower reaching to heaven. One that would ensure their fame and renown forever.

Javan watched the boys disappear at the sound of their mother’s call. Slapping his brother on the back, he said, Come on, Eli. Let’s get another pallet. I think we can do three more rounds before dinner.

The LORD came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building. Look! he said. The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.

In that way, the LORD scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city. That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the LORD confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world.

(GEN. 11:5–9 NLT)

CHAPTER 1

Why Do We Want the Extraordinary?

Isn’t it interesting that one of the most unified and packed-with-potential moments of human history offended God? We don’t see any obvious crimes happening. No wars. No sacrifices to foreign gods. Just mankind working together in harmony to accomplish something extraordinary. If we were to see the same thing today, we’d consider it an obvious success. Even God observed that there was nothing they couldn’t do!

Yet, here in the first few pages of our Bible, God’s not on board. He descended. He disrupted. And he disseminated. But why? If we look back a few chapters, we find a clue. God had commanded them to multiply and spread out across the earth for his name’s sake (Gen. 9:7). Yet here they were huddled together for their name’s sake. They wanted fame. They wanted a legacy. The desire to leave their mark on the world was just too alluring. If you can do something great, you should. Right? Isn’t bigger always better?

We feel these desires in our own chests. These questions reverberate in our minds. We might be many millennia away from these ancient people, but their preference for the extraordinary mirrors our own. The Babel blunder helps us see that our attraction to fame didn’t begin when we all got smartphones and YouTube channels. It’s rooted much deeper than opportunity. But as Christians in the twenty-first century, we have a couple of other factors that push us toward the extraordinary. Let’s look at these three things together and consider why it’s such a powerful cocktail.

1. Ancient Attraction

Our attraction to the extraordinary is nothing new. We see it all over the pages of the Bible. The desire for greatness is in the mortar of that half-built tower. It’s in Saul’s bitter envy of David. It’s in the repetition of the disciples’ arguments about who was the best. And it’s in us too. We all feel the strong attraction to the big and notable over the small and mundane. Extroverted or introverted, rich or poor, young or old, we feel the pull. We desperately want to be more than average. We long to leave our mark on the world.

Why is this longing so strong? Why is our imagination more captivated by finding our unique purpose in the world than finding a place to serve at church? Why does growing our business seem more urgent than growing in self-control? Why does hosting a podcast appear more impactful than hosting a neighbor for dinner? Why does the corner office seem more fulfilling than the cubicle?

The extraordinary captures our imagination because it seems to offer things we deeply long for. It targets desires that are deeply rooted in every human heart.

THE EXTRAORDINARY OFFERS US AN IDENTITY.

I felt this acutely in the early years of motherhood. My daily tasks required nothing special. I had two hands, so I could change diapers. I had two legs, so I could carry laundry through the busy intersections of my house. I had a driver’s license, so I could drive to the grocery store. None of my unique wiring, skill set, or passions were required. These tasks could offer me nothing in the way of significance or stature. Anyone could do this job, and so it offered me nothing in the way of an identity. I was a pawn on the chessboard, necessary but dispensable.

But if I can do something exceptional, something not everyone can do, I have something to build my identity on. If I write books, I am an author. If I gain a following online, I am an influencer. If I become VP, I am a leader. If I can rise above normal, I have a new way of identifying myself.

THE EXTRAORDINARY GIVES US A WAY TO FIGHT EVIL.

There is a lot to be concerned about in the world around us. And to be sure, we aren’t all concerned about the same things. But we can all agree that things are not as they should be. Sex trafficking. Domestic violence. Racial injustice. Abortion. Child labor. Corporate greed. Environmental problems. Pornography addiction. Divorce. Mental illness. Disabilities. Poverty. We’re daily confronted with the overwhelming brokenness in the world around us.

Our hearts ache to do something! And since the problems seem gargantuan in size, we look for a herculean solution. What good will clean dishes do for the sex trafficking problem in India? What good does church attendance do for the rampant addiction to pornography? What good will my job as my kids’ taxi driver do for the poverty I pass on the streets of my city? Doing something big seems to offer us an outlet to address the big problems we see in the world around us. The extraordinary gives us a way to fight evil.

THE EXTRAORDINARY VALIDATES OUR WORK.

It’s so predictable, the impulse I have to tell Jimmy everything I did when he gets home from work. I have just poured all my energy into training children, mediating disagreements, making meals and cleaning them up, responding to emails and sending letters. No one but my children has seen me. And I long for my work to be seen. I want validation that what I’ve just worked hard at is valuable and accomplishing something. Can you feel this longing in your own work?

Extraordinary things have this validation built in. Being at concerts with Jimmy showed