My men’s group was recently prompted with this question:
What is your third word?
The idea was simple.
As Christians, there are some answers to the question of purpose that we do not have to invent. We exist to glorify God. We are called to love and serve others.
Those are givens.
But then comes the question underneath them:
What is the particular way you seem to have been made to do that?
Not your job title.
Not necessarily your strongest skill.
Not even the ministry role you happen to occupy right now.
What is the thing that seems to keep appearing through all of them?
That is the third word.
At first, I liked the question.
Then I noticed how quickly a word like calling can become heavy.
Once you name something, it can begin to feel like a claim.
If I say, This is what I was made for, I have suddenly given myself—and everyone else—a measuring stick.
Am I good enough at it?
Have I accomplished enough?
Does my life actually justify the word?
Maybe that pressure is especially strong when the word describes something we care deeply about. If God has really placed something in us, shouldn’t we already be unusually good at it?
But that logic breaks down quickly.
Calling is not the same thing as competence.
A musician may be called to make music before becoming a great musician.
A teacher may have something worth giving long before learning how to teach well.
A leader can possess the beginnings of leadership while still needing years of formation before anyone should trust him with much authority.
Being pointed somewhere does not mean you have already arrived.
Perhaps a calling names the direction before it names the maturity.
Calling names the direction.
Formation builds the capacity.
Faithfulness closes the distance.
That changes what it means to say the word aloud.
It is no longer, Look what I have become.
It may simply mean:
This is the direction in which I believe I am supposed to keep becoming.
Mine, I think, is Illuminate.
The word has stayed with me because illumination does not create what is true.
It makes what is already there easier to see.
Light reveals shape.
It exposes what had been hidden in shadow.
It brings definition to something that was present but difficult to distinguish.
And once enough becomes visible, movement becomes possible.
That last part matters to me.
Light does not drag anyone forward.
It does not make the decision for them.
It simply changes what can be seen.
A path that was invisible becomes walkable.
Something vaguely sensed can finally be named.
A pattern that felt disconnected begins to take shape.
A truth that was intellectually present becomes harder to overlook.
That is the pattern I keep finding in the things I am drawn toward: making underlying structures visible, giving language to things that are difficult to name, organizing complexity until something becomes understandable, and creating forms that help people see what might otherwise remain obscured.
Sometimes that looks like writing.
Sometimes it looks like building frameworks.
Sometimes it looks like data.
Sometimes story.
Sometimes a conversation.
The medium changes.
The movement underneath it seems remarkably consistent.
Illuminate.
There is an important boundary in that word for me.
I am not the light.
Christ is.
Whatever truth I help make visible was not made true by my ability to explain it. Whatever clarity I possess is received, partial, and accountable to Him.
That keeps Illuminate from becoming a statement of personal importance.
It becomes a statement of stewardship.
If God has given me some capacity to notice, connect, explain, create, or clarify, then the question is not whether those abilities make me impressive.
The question is whether I will place them in His hands.
Whether I will use them to draw attention toward what is true rather than toward myself.
Whether I will become clearer without becoming harder.
Whether discernment will remain joined to love.
Whether understanding will lead toward obedience rather than merely producing another elegant framework.
There is plenty of room inside that word for me to grow.
Which may be exactly the point.
Maybe our “third” is not the final description of who we are.
It may not even be the thing we currently do best.
Perhaps it is the recurring shape of what God has entrusted to us.
A direction.
A stewardship.
A kind of good we seem especially equipped to bring into the world when our gifts are surrendered rather than self-directed.
And maybe naming it is useful precisely because we have not arrived.
A word can become a landmark.
Something other people can help us remember.
Something our brothers can call us back toward when they see us drifting into its counterfeit.
Something we can hold before God without pretending we already know everything it will require.
I do not know exactly what Illuminate will mean across the whole shape of my life.
I probably should not.
For now, it is enough to recognize the direction.
To keep learning.
To keep becoming.
And when something has been entrusted to me that I can help bring into clearer light, to be faithful enough to do it.