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.