Finding Your Purpose

            This morning I was curious.  I Googled “Finding your purpose,” and 952 million results popped up.  That’s a lot of information.  952,000,000 results about any given subject means that it must be important to today’s society.  Although I doubt all 952 million Internet recourses have legitimate content matter, it still makes you think, doesn’t it?  The topic of purpose has perplexed people from near and far.  It has got to be one of the deepest things people search for in life. Time and time again there are men and women, teens, children, and even the elderly, who still long to know what purpose their life has.

            Everybody wants to feel purpose.  It is a need inside us.  Whether we like it or not, somewhere inside the deep layers that we might not look often, deep down we all want our life to mean something.  Purpose.  So, I typed that in too.  

            I searched “why do I need to feel purpose?” I got 1,690,000,000 results for that, even more than the first search.  Apparently our “need” to “feel” purpose is even greater than our desire to finding purpose.  Curious, isn’t it?

            Simply enough, purpose is something that we crave to know.  Perhaps the reason there is so much info out there on finding your life purpose is because there is a lot of people making a business by telling you the answer.  In every corner there is someone willing to take your hard earned money and spit back to you the answer you are already telling yourself.  We have self-quizzes, polls, and a host of other ways to determine it. Friends are sometimes asked to narrow it down for you with advice.  

            Could it be that the reason there is so much info on the subject is that maybe nobody really knows?  Perhaps it is because so many people find it so difficult to find out on their own.  Maybe it is a mystery that is just too far above anything we can figure out ourselves?  Whatever the reason, there are many people on the look for the truth.  What is my life’s purpose?  It is an age-old question.

            As a Christian, we already have a head start on the issue.  We know that our lives are created for intimacy with God.  We know from different passages in scripture we are made to worship and give glory to our Heavenly Father.  But I’m not talking about the big picture.  I’m talking about specifics.  Have you ever wondered what God had in mind for you specifically?  Let me propose the question.  

            What is God’s unique purpose and intention for you and your life?

            I believe we each have purpose that God uniquely put inside His will for us.  

Ephesians 2:10 says:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

            If this is true, the next question that pops into mind might be “How do I know what my life purpose is?” When the Bible says that God prepared me for good works beforehand, why doesn’t He just tell me what it is?

            Good question.

            Before we get so deep in theology that we don’t even know what we are talking about any longer, let me just keep us on a straight path.  God has a plan for your life.  He has something specific in mind that He wants you to accomplish in life.  Whether that is big or small, blue or red, public or private… well… that is something worth the effort to figure out, right?

            Why then do we run to every nook and cranny to find the answer except the one who actually knows?

            That, is an even better question.

            I want to help you out in that department. You already know that God wants you to accomplish your life purpose.  I want you to truly know that I do as well.  In doing that, I want to take you back to last week’s scripture again, and go from there.  Sorry if this seems redundant to use the same scripture, but it does show us how living and active God’s word is.  He can speak in multiple ways with the exact same verses.

Genesis 12:1

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

            Finding your life purpose is not as hard as you think.  Ready?

Steps to Knowing God’s Purpose for My Life

Step 1: Listen to what God says today.

Step 2: Do it again tomorrow.

Step 3: Repeat.

            Seriously?  Did I just say that?  Absolutely.  

            Aren’t there 956 gazillion internet sites showing us a much more complicated way to search and seek and spend all our time and money to squint sideways and maybe see something true and maybe not? Surely they have a much more difficult way to see the truth.            

            Is that what you want?

            Here is what I’m saying.  I am 42 years old.  I have spent the last 15 years of my difficult life searching God for answers that He is not going to give me.  When I spun my wheels bald, burning all the rubber off their tread, exhausting myself, I came to a very simple conclusion.  

            Finding my life purpose is a journey of obedience.

            That’s it.  It is simple.  Easy.  Why would God make it hard?  

            Do you think that a God who wants you to LIVE out your life purpose would make it hard to FIND it?  No, no, absolutely no.  God has made it so easy to figure out His will for us, that we only really need ONE step instead of three.

Steps to Knowing God’s Purpose for My Life

Step 1: Listen to what God says today.

            And that is all we need.

            I’m not trying to be a jerk or make anyone feel simple.  But seriously, that is all it takes.  I know this because of the continuation of Abram’s account in Genesis.  God didn’t tell him where to go.  He didn’t tell him the endgame.  He just told him to go.  Step 1 only required Abram’s obedience.  Guess what?  Abram packed up everything and went.  He listened.  Abram took Step 1 and did it.

            The next day, Abram woke up and did Step 1. He listened again.  He obeyed again.  

Genesis 12:4-5a

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan.

            AFTER Abram listened to Step 1 and began to walk, he must have been told to go to Canaan.  We aren’t sure why he went in that direction.  Possibly God showed him while on the way. Possibly it was random. Regardless of whether it was random or shown, he still listened.  He obeyed and started walking.  I’m sure if he was walking in the wrong direction he would have been told so.  When he got there, a crazy thing happened.  God told him what to do next. 

Genesis 12:7

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

            Now Abram was in the place God wanted him. Not a step to the left or to the right.  He was right in that sweet place.  Yes, it took work to get there.  He had to pack, get everything together, rent the U-Haul truck, and say goodbye to all the neighbors.  It took a lot of effort to do all of that, but actually figuring out what God’s purpose was… that was easy.  All he had to do was listen.  Step 1.  Now that he was in Canaan, God gave him another word to hear.  “To your offspring I will give this land.”  Great!  Now I know a little bit more.  I knew I was supposed to leave.  Now I know where I’m supposed to stay.  What do I do now?  You guessed it... Step 1.

Genesis 12:12

Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom.

            Is there a pattern here?

            I know it might seem silly that I’m condensing this into such simplistic terms.  But in all honesty, I can save you years of effort and countless Internet articles if you could just see things for the simplicity that they are. God wants you to know your purpose.  Why He doesn’t show it all to us at once?  I’m not sure.  But I do know that if you obey what He says you are in the right place.

            I want to challenge you today.  What has God been whispering in your ear lately that you haven’t had courage or faith to listen to?  Is there something in the back of your mind or pressed hard in your spirit that you know God wants you to do?  Unless you take that first step and obey, how on earth are you ever going to find out what it is that God has called for your life to be?  Really.  Obedience to God is the only route to truly finding your life purpose.

            A mentor once told me that finding God’s will for your life is not so much a big announcement but a series of little steps.  

            Yes, God could come up with some awesome and unprecedented way to speak your life purpose right to your ears all in one breath.  But if He did that, you might not be ready for it.  Instead, all the little steps of obedience that you take, (Step 1 today, Step 1 tomorrow, Step 1 the next day) will get you there in a different fashion. You will arrive in the place of knowing God’s purpose for your life, and you will be PREPARED to do it.  You will not only be enjoying the knowledge of what it is that God wants you to do, but you will be equipped with everything necessary once you’ve gotten there.  Abram was the same.  He arrived in the land that his decedents would receive as a very rich man scripture says.  He had gained both physical things and the non-tangibles.  He trusted God in a way that made the next step possible.  How would Abraham (his name was changed) be able to have the faith to trust that Ishmael was not going to be his heir, bear a son named Isaac at the old age of 100, and later trust in the Lord so heavily that if he sacrificed Isaac as he was told, would be able to receive him back to life by God’s own hand?  

Hebrews 11:17-19

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

            That requires a whole lot more faith than just renting the U-Haul!            

            My point is, so many times we make this harder than it is.  I want you to know how simple it really is, and save yourself the time and effort that I have wasted in the search for the great “life purpose.”

            Do yourself a favor.

Step 1: Listen to what God says today.

            Tomorrow wake up, and do it again.

            Make it a continual habit.

            And that is all you need.

By Chuck Carr