It’s the age-old question that philosophers have sought an answer for. Theories have been developed. Ideas have been passed on.
But why are you here?
I have never read “A Purpose Driven Life” or any of the other spin-off books. But we all need a sense of purpose in our life.
- If we don’t have purpose, we will be aimless.
- Aimlessness leads to dissatisfaction.
- Dissatisfaction leads to quitting.
What are you here for? The Bible says that all of us are here to serve and glorify God. While we work to accomplish this, God promises to bless us. Sometimes the blessings are manifested in physical things. Sometimes we avoid bad things. Sometimes we are storing treasures in Heaven.
This is just a broad picture. The broad picture may help, but we still may start to lose focus a little. We need our purpose to be more specific
God does have a specific plan and purpose for each of us, but it is different for each one. But….shhh…it’s a secret.
Not really, but God does want you to seek it out. As you draw closer to Him, He begins to reveal a little more of His plan for your life. One step at a time. You don’t get to see the final destination, or even the overall picture. God shows you just enough to make the next step.
Sometimes you may think that you would like to see further down the road of your life. We think that you can prepare better if You can see what’s coming. You think that things would be better. In reality, it would scare most of us to see what trials you will have to face. The future disappointments and tragedies would cripple us now. If you just follow each step that God reveals to you and learn from the daily lessons, you will be ready when those events take place later.
Taking just one step should be easy enough, but it still requires living by faith. You have to learn to “trust in the Lord with all your heart.” (Prov. 3:5) The next step God wants you to take may be in a different direction than you were thinking. You may not see how the situations may be resolved. But you can always have confidence if you know that you are trying to follow God’s plan instead of your own.
Your job – and my job – is to uncover the plan that God has and follow it to the best of our ability. When you discover what you are here for, you can be more intentional about what you do, how you act, what you say, etc. Purpose and a sense of direction will allow you to experience satisfaction and accomplishment – even if it is very small. These experiences will build in your life. You will be able to look back and see how your life has come together and how it has been able to affect others.
Joshua, great post! So very true! Although it can be so hard to narrow down our purpose, we know that God has one for us. I always go back to Psalm 139 – that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and that He planed our days for us before one of them came to be! Sometimes we just need to sit back, be silent, and listen to Him. I really like your statement – if we don’t have purpose we will be aimless and aimlessness leads to dissatisfaction which leads to quitting.
@WalkingInDestiny Glad you liked it. I dealt with this personally when I was younger, and I’ve worked with young people that struggled with this problem.