What does it mean to thrive?
The short answer is to be the version of yourself that God created you to be. That’s cute or whatever, but what does that mean?
Thrive is the word that God used when communicating the call to embrace my autism: if you don’t embrace that you have autism, you will not be able to thrive in the U.S. I was going to get diagnosed with it as a kid, but after a family dynamic adjustment I was deemed to not have it. I struggled with being fundamentally different and always doing life wrong. I tried embracing it in 2018, only for it to be forced back in the closet. Embracing autism meant going against 25+ years of narratives against it. Because God said to embrace it, I embarked on the journey to figure out what this looks like in my life.
Let me tell you what thriving is not. It is not a mask. It is not an act. It is not based on what the world tells you. It isn’t something that you arrive at and then you are set for life. Not everything has to go to plan for you to thrive. It is not based on performance or checking a series of boxes. Thriving doesn’t look the same in every season of our lives.
It is not something you can get to on your own. God did not design what it means to thrive to be obtainable without Him. Thriving is built upon the cornerstone that is Jesus. It’s built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets (Ephesians 2:19-20). You are not meant to do this without others alongside you. Believe me, I tried. We are one body. You are not meant to do this without others. Others are not meant to do this without you.
Thriving is not a mask. It is not an act. It is not based on what the world tells you. It isn’t something that you arrive at and then you are set for life.
Thriving is embracing the fullness of our identity in Christ. It is leveraging the fullness of access to the Father and allowing the Holy Spirit access to all parts of ourselves. This is more easily typed than implemented. It’s hard to embrace the fullness of your identity when there is a sense of shame about how you are SHAPEd. It’s hard to embrace something that you were never allowed to fully live out in the first place.
Thriving is about aligning to God… or at least getting an A for effort. It’s about learning to pray without ceasing to get God’s perspective on a matter. It is being open to the Holy Spirit-reminders about who God is and what you have learned about your walk with Christ. It’s sensing how much God loves you by the nature of his interactions with you. It’s celebrating the wins, no matter how big or small. It’s treasuring the fruit of God’s process.
Thriving is not just about you. We are not meant to keep the good news of how the Gospel works to ourselves. God wants us to bless others with our perspective and what God was taught us along the way. Thriving is about representing Jesus as ambassadors on this Earth. It’s not showing that we have it together, but showing what it looks like to follow Jesus and growing up along the way. Thriving is showing that this is for everyone and Jesus is waiting and ready to start the journey with them.