Purpose

Perhaps the 2nd greatest revelation to ever occur to me was to do with my purpose, a concept I had been battling with for several years. “Why has God put me here at this specific point in time, in this distinct situation?” is something I often asked myself, and numerous black and white motivational Instagram videos were consulted in an attempt to answer this question. The types that consist of a well-bearded man screaming at the top of his lungs for his listeners to “make an impact” or to “be different”. Such statements were much too vague and inconsistent to satisfy my thirst for knowledge, for there have been several detestable men and women that have succeeded in both of these pursuits, some of them being Adolf Hitler and Jezebel. The Word of God is never inconsistent, actually, the Psalmist says in Psalms 119:160(NIV) that “All Your words are true”. Clearly, I wasn’t going to find anything reasonable on Instagram. Instagram is odd.

Upon asking some friends, I received a vast array of answers. One of the most prevalent being “To do what comes easiest to you and be good at it”.

A crushing concept.

If that was my purpose, how would I be any different from the common housefly? The housefly is a master of its craft, from ice cream to feces, there is no food, drink, or even object on any spectrum that can escape its overly broad pallet. The housefly revolutionized being great at what comes easiest to it. Eating. So was I destined to the same life structure as this mindless creature? Droning through days without zeal? Surely not! There is a reason we are made in God’s image and houseflies aren’t, and it was only after fruitlessly exhausting my thoughts that I realized I should have been consulting the Maker Himself.

My prayer went something like, “God, please tell me what my purpose is, that I may try and fulfill it”. In my mind, at the time I presumed that God had created us each with a unique purpose and that each purpose acted as a piece in a puzzle that would eventually, when everyone’s purpose had been fulfilled, create a glorious image of His splendor. I believed the reason the world hadn’t yet ended was because this puzzle had not yet been completed, I was totally wrong. Our collective purpose serves as a harmony, not a puzzle, for everything in existence was created to serve one purpose, and that purpose is to glorify God. I liken our collective purpose to a harmony because, although we all work together to serve the same purpose, we accomplish this through different means/routes. Some sing, some play sports, some do science, but all routes beautifully lead to the same result. His glory. He didn’t create us with a unique purpose, but He created us uniquely with purpose. This is easily seen in the Old Testament, where each character in the story had different problems to overcome, and each character accomplished different things, but their lives were used to glorify God regardless.

What, then, was my part to play in this harmony? What was the route I was to use in order to give Him glory? If we look at the Old Testament again, we see that none of the characters ever stressed about what their purpose was in the grand scheme of life, for that was out of their control. They just listened for God’s voice and obeyed. Simple stuff, but it was mind blowing to me. Be a living testimony, let someone look at your life and see God. Love everyone every day, be diligent every day, choose Him over nonsense every day, and you’ll already be fulfilling your purpose, for a life of love gives Him glory. You will definitely stumble, everyone stumbles, but He will be there to catch you. There are only a few things that humans are destined to do, two of these things are to sin and to die. Sin is inevitable, it is our nature, that is why my single greatest revelation, the greatest thought, is that we cannot mess up badly enough to stop being loved by God. David slept with his soldier’s wife and sent him to the front lines in order for him to be killed. Upon the realization of his grave mistake, he genuinely mourned and grieved without ceasing. God forgave David and His one and only Son was born through David’s lineage, Jesus even pronounced Himself the Son of David!

There is no limit to His mercy and grace, but that doesn’t mean we should abuse it. Try to love and defeat your nature every day, and I will try to do the same. His blessings will rain on us in Jesus’ name.