Find Your Purpose

Find your purpose.

In the initial post I stated that being a good man, a strong man, was not challenging.  I said it requires focusing on doing the things YOU were made to do and discovering who God made you to be.  And then doing what He created you to do.

This might seem obvious, but in today’s world, many men feel purposeless.  They don’t have a goal or a vision of what they should do or who they should be.  They feel directionless, becalmed at sea.  They just exist with no meaning in life.

That isn’t what God intended for you. 

Jeremiah 29:11 says: “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

In my own life, I used to be afraid of God’s plans.  I figured that if I surrendered myself 100% to Him, He would take me away from the job I loved, and He would make me go into ministry full time.  I’ve always loved God deeply and tried to serve Him with my life.  But I was holding back, because I was afraid of what my life would look like if I gave Him “full control”.

Frankly, I was an idiot. 

Not because I wasn’t giving God control of my life, but because I had no understanding of what God wanted to do with my life and how God works. 

At this time in my life, I was very busy.  I was working as a chemist and enjoying success in my career.  I had four daughters and a wife at home.  We homeschooled the girls, which kept us very busy.  At church, my wife and I led the 4th and 5th grade Sunday School classroom that saw 20-40 kids a week.  We also wrote much of the curriculum ourselves.  In addition, we created and led a marriage mentoring ministry.  Finally, I ran an annual canoe trip as a men’s ministry at church.

I’m not really sure where I thought I wasn’t living fully surrendered to God. But there was this idea being preached from the pulpit that if you are serious about following God, then you would work in full-time spiritual ministry, not a secular job.

In my mind there was a separation between “spiritual” and “secular”.

But then, one summer someone gave me the book Man Alive by Patrick Morley.  It is a very good book written by a man who truly understands men.   I highly recommend it.  But the most impactful thing for my life was in regard to this concept of “spiritual” and “secular”.

The book taught that there is NO separation between “spiritual” and “secular” life. 

God gave us several commands:

One is the Great Commission, which tells us to go and make disciples. 

This is our “spiritual” job.  The one we do on Sunday mornings.  Or we figure we have to be a “missionary” to do this work.

Then Monday-Saturday, we do our “regular/secular” jobs.  We view going to work, taking care of our family, tending to our houses, and other things as our “secular” work.  It is deemed less important because it’s not obviously spiritual. 

There is this separation in our minds.

But what I didn’t realize is everything is spiritual. 

God gave us another command:

Be fruitful and multiply. 

This was a command from God to Adam and Eve.  Because the command comes from God, that makes it spiritual. 

So everything we do, whether we make our bed, go to work or pray with our family, is spiritual.  God created our job for us. He made us to do our job.  Our personality is made for our calling.

If we are to do all to the glory of God, then we need to worship, play, eat and work to the glory of God.  1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

I am a scientist.  God made my mind for that purpose. 

My brother-in-law is a mechanic, and he is incredibly skilled at it.  This was God’s design for him. 

God is not looking for every one of us men who are “serious” about Him, to quit our jobs and “do ministry”. 

I’ve seen this a lot in churches, if you are serious about God, you must  to must go into full time ministry. 

But think about this:  If God made me to be a scientist, and His role for me is to fulfill the Great Commission by reaching people in that field, how am I fulfilling that by quitting the field and doing full time ministry?

This is the realization that Patrick Morley’s book taught me: I was happy and fulfilled as a scientist because Iwas doing what God made me to do.  Also, I was anxious and reserved about the idea of full-time ministry, because that WASN’T what God created me to do.

To bring this back to the idea of finding a purpose – the first thing to do is discover who God created you to be.  God made each of us different.  He made us each with a job to do. 

Finding your purpose is like finding the right tool to use.  We are each tools for the kingdom, so we need to find where we fit.  Paul described each of us as different parts of the body, I like to think of us as tools.  Tools have a job.  Tools fit somewhere and fix something.  So find out what you were made to do.

In this case, I’m not talking about taking a spiritual gifts survey.  I’m talking about finding out what you love and what you are good at and then DO that.

In my case, I love science, kids, music, fishing, teaching, cooking, baking, among many other things.  I find joy when I do those things, because I am being the person God created me to be when I parent well or spend time in His creation teaching my daughters how to fish.

God didn’t create me to be an artist.  I hate it and have no talent.  So, if I forced myself to be an artist, I wouldn’t find joy, even if by some miracle I was successful.  I would be going against the design of God.  When God made me, He left out that ingredient.  He said: “Ben isn’t going to need any of that.  His wife will have plenty.”

Find out what God’s designed purpose is for YOU. 

Ask yourself these questions:

What are the things I like to do?

What are the things I don’t like to do?

How do these things fit together, and how can I spend my days being what I am designed to be?

Here is where the rubber meets the road with this idea.  Let’s say you answered: “I was designed to work with my hands, and I don’t like to work in the office.”  But you are an account.  Well, I will tell you that if you try to be someone you were not designed to be, you will not find fulfillment.  You need to be what God designed you to be.  You need to work in the areas you enjoy.  If you try to do things you don’t enjoy, just because they give you money, you will never be satisfied.  The secret to life is to be what you were designed to be.  When true joy bubbles out of you, you have found it.

My challenge to you is to identify who you are and then figure out what steps you should take to fully lean into who that person is.

welcome!

Male Corner

Welcome to my side of the blog.  This is where I (Ben) speak to the men who want to learn more about God, being a man and just fun stuff.

This is a corner of the blog by design. 

Men don’t seek or consume content the same way women do.  They don’t go looking for self-help, fulfillment or self-actualization nearly as often.  We aren’t the ones in the church that are excited to talk about our feelings or share new realizations.

We focus on DOING things, BUILDING things, MOVING things, BREAKING things and FOOTBALL. 

We tend not to share our deepest feelings and thoughts but instead keep those close and deep inside.

Because of that, we don’t end up on websites like this, looking for content like this.

In fact, I expect a huge amount of readers of this article will be wives who really like Bekah’s side of the blog and are seeking good content for their husband. And then the wives plan to force you to read this stuff so you CAN BECOME THE MAN OF GOD THAT SHE HAS BEEN DESPARATELY WAITING AND THIS NEW RESOURCE WILL JUST DO THE TRICK AND LIFE WILL FINALLY BE PERFECT.

Ladies:  you can lead a horse to water….

When your man is ready, he will read this.  When he needs inspiration, he will come.  When he has questions for me, he will ask.

There are fundamental differences between men and women.  One of my favorite men’s books (Man Alive by Patrick Morley) explained that men only feel moved by the Spirit in church a few times a year at most.  We only feel the goosebumps on our arms during that particular song or part of the sermon once a year.  Most of the time, we aren’t driven by a good story, a rousing life change, a perfect illustration.  We actually just keep doing what we do. Working in the church.  Working at home.  Working at work.  We stay focused in the day to day – and not on the big picture.  And that is by design.

So, to the ladies who are here, feel free to read, but this isn’t for you.  I’d love to create a space that calls men to a high standard, that teaches young men how to become strong men of God, and helps men in all stages of life grow and become better men.  But in order to do that, I need to speak to them and not have you telling them to listen to me.  So feel free to let them know about this resource, but then let them be.  Thank you!

Men – God has given us a role to play, a job to do, a person to be.  Each of us are different.  We are different ages, from different regions and have different upbringings.  What looks like manhood to you will be very different than what it looks like to me.  That’s ok.  Some of you will be way more “manly” than me, some perhaps less.  Again, ok.  But what we need to do is determine what it means to be a man, and then figure out how to excel at that.

Today, everyone tells us what we can and can’t be.  What is manly, what isn’t manly or even that being manly is wrong.  What one man says is leadership in the family, another person will call abuse.  Sometimes it feels impossible to know how to be a man, because Christian leaders have all kinds of different ideas.

And, maybe you aren’t a Christian.  I still would like to talk to you too.  Because I care that you are a good man, a man who treats women well, who treat children well and who treats other men well.  Our society desperately needs good men.

Men who are strong.  Men who know the difference between right and wrong. Men who can change the community they live in. 

We need to be the kind of men who make people feel safe and who people come to when in trouble.

So, what do you need to do?  How do you get there?

It’s pretty simple.

You do it how we accomplish anything in life.  You do it one step at a time.  You attack a big problem by doing the first step, and then the second step, and then the third step…  The same way you run marathons, untie huge fishing line knots, or roof houses. 

You choose not to be overwhelmed, but simply focus on what you do know and then learn what you don’t know.

In the case of manliness, what do you know? 

You know that you were created in God’s image, male and female He created us (Genesis 1:27).

You know you are called with a purpose (Romans 8:28).

You know that God has plans for you (Jeremiah 29:11).

You know God cares how you treat one another (Matthew 5-7).

You know God cares how you lead your household (1 Peter 3:7, 1 Timothy 3:4)

Everything you need to excel at manhood is in the Bible for you, in simple, small lessons. 

God created you for this purpose and He made sure you had the teaching and guidance you need.

This is the secret –don’t stress over a huge list of things that we need to do.  Instead, focus on doing the things you were made to do.  Discover who God made you to be, and then do the things He created you to do.

That’s the focus of this corner – unlocking the man of God, who God designed, by focusing on simple disciplines and removing “the sin that so easily encumbers” (Hebrews 12:1).