What's Your Purpose?

Do you ever wonder what your exact purpose is?

Rick Warren has said: “God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.”

Furthermore, Acts 17:28 states, 'For in him we live and move and have our being.'

I think a lot of us get that we are created in God's image for relationship with him, and that relationship with God is the only thing that will ultimately satisfy our souls…to live, move, and have being.

We may recognize who we are supposed to be, but get confused when it comes to what we are supposed to do. While our identity should never be wrapped up in what we do, it is typically displayed through what we do. I recently heard John Maxwell say, “true success is only achieved after one discovers what they are here to do.”

I’ve also heard that the two greatest days of your life are when you are born and when you figure out why.

Consider a hammer. It's designed to hit nails. That's what it was created to do. Now imagine that the hammer never gets used. It just sits in the toolbox. The hammer doesn't care.

But now imagine that same hammer with a soul and a self-consciousness. Days and days go by with him remaining in the toolbox. He feels funny inside, but he's not sure exactly why. Something is missing, but he doesn't know what it is.

Then one day someone pulls him out of the toolbox and uses him to break some branches for the fireplace. The hammer is exhilarated. Being held, being wielded, hitting the branches--the hammer loves it. He discovers that he was created to be used by and for his owner. At the end of the day, though, he is still unfulfilled. Hitting the branches was fun, but it wasn't enough. Something is still missing.

In the days that follow, he's used often. He reshapes a hubcap, blasts through some sheet rock, knocks a table leg back into place. Still, he's left unfulfilled. So he longs for more action. He wants to be used as much as possible to knock things around, to break things, to blast things, to dent things. He figures that he just hasn't had enough of these events to consider himself a successful hammer. He concludes that just having more similar events is the solution to his lack of fulfillment.

Then one day he is used to hit a nail. Suddenly, the lights come on in his hammer soul. He now understands what he was truly created to do. He was meant to hit nails. All the other things he hit pale in comparison. Now he knows what his hammer soul was searching for all along.

I think we are a lot like a hammer. We know that we are to be used, just not sure for what. We submit our lives to our Master desiring to be utilized by Him for an amazing purpose, yet still end up unfulfilled.

I wonder if that’s okay. Could something bigger be going on when it seems like God is using us to just knock things around, break things, and dent things? Perhaps we need to first go through those things before we truly “hit the nail on the head.”

Do you know what your purpose is?
Do you feel pressure to discover your ‘exact’ purpose?

What if our ‘exact’ purpose was to do what we’re doing now the best that we can? Our approach to reshaping hubcaps and knocking table legs back in place can either prepare us for the future, or leave us bitter about our present. I think everything we go through in life is to prepare us for the next life event…whatever that may be.

As for me, I’m going to try and live out 1 Corinthians 15:58
Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.