Purpose of Life

I was sitting in my office where I have a wonderful view of a mountain slope with green trees and the sunlight coming in through my window and I thought to myself: How wonderful it is! We have a God who sustains His creation. The mountain reminds me of His majesty and His power and the greenness of the trees remind me that He not only created, but He sustains His creation. That gives me tremendous hope because I’m a part of that creation. I’m the crowning part of His creation, because He placed His image, His stamp upon me and upon all of you who are listening in on this call. The good word for us is that God sustains us. Through this day you will find that His power and wisdom is available to us. I’ve been so thrilled to share with you, week after week. If you’ve been able to think about the things that have been spoken, (I know that it’s a tight 10 minutes we spend together, but I believe that God then takes the Word and allows it to percolate through to our thought processes and to our work activities) and there are any thoughts or questions that you have, or comments or even suggestions about further topics, I want you to have the freedom to write to me.


I trust that last week’s word of encouragement blessed many people around you and by blessing and encouraging others, you were blessed yourself.

This morning I’d like to talk about purpose in life. What is purpose? The dictionary defines purpose as the object towards which one strives or for which something exists, like an aim or a goal. Sarah Josepha Hale said ‘…and. ever those who would enjoyment gain, must find it in the purpose they pursue’. If you’re going to have a sense of enjoying life, you must be able to find the right purpose for your life.

We find purpose in different ways. Some of us find purpose through deduction. We live our lives really without purpose or direction, with no thought as to what we’re going to do or why. We’re just pulled to and fro through our daily existence. And the only way we can find out what we’re doing is by deducing what is happening in our lives. People call this postmortem purpose. I read an interesting little anecdote – comes from a story that was written some time back by Anne Tyler from her book ‘The Accidental Tourist’. It tells of a young couple whose only son is murdered. This of course, does something to the couple; it tears them further and further apart. Finally they are at the point of legal separation. The wife in the story, exasperated, says to her husband, “Nothing ever touches you anymore. You just drift through life.” He’s quiet for a long moment, and then really more to himself than to her, he softly replies, “I don’t drift. I endure.” And sometimes we just go through life, just allowing the things of life to determine what we need to be doing.

The second way that some of us find purpose is through association. We gain it through associating with lives of different people, families, neighborhoods, friends, organizations that we are part of, companies or churches or other various organizations. Rather than develop personal purpose, we simply comply with the corporate purposes of one or more of these groups. Therefore it is not our purpose but an adopted purpose that begins to mark our lives.

The third way is through emulation. We look up to heroic figures in our lives, individuals whom we try to pattern our lives after. We allow that to determine our purpose. We select people or role models and then allow their views to become our purpose. We call this a vicarious purpose. It’s not our own purpose; we live our lives through somebody else. I was reading a book ‘The Success Journey’ by John Maxwell and he says: “Sometimes we look at people and we say we want to be like these kind of people and so our life’s goal is to have the wealth of Bill Gates, the physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Cindy Crawford, the intelligence of Albert Einstein, the athletic ability of Michael Jordan, the business prowess of Donald Trump, the social grace and poise of Jackie Kennedy, the imagination of Walt Disney and the heart of Mother Teresa”. But again this is not our purpose; this is a purpose of imitation.

We also think sometimes that purpose comes through some of the things that we are doing or are focused on. And sometimes we get focused on wealth, and that seems to give us a sense of purpose. But having money doesn’t really begin to be a fulfilling part of the plan that we must have for our lives. Industrialist John D. Rockefeller, a multibillionaire, so rich that he gave away more than $350 million in his lifetime, was once asked how much money it would take to satisfy him. His reply was “Just a little more”. In Ecclesiastes 5:10, the Bible tells us “whoever loves money never has money enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.”

So going after wealth as our purpose in life is like going after a mirage in the desert. It’s like something that we try to attain but never get there. A case in point is this: in 1923, a small group of the world’s wealthiest men met in the Edgewater beach Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. They were a who’s who of wealth and power and at that time, they controlled more money than the total amount contained in the United States Treasury. Here’s a list of who they were and what eventually happened to them.

1. Charles Schwab, president of the largest steel company, died broke.
2. Arthur Cotton, greatest of the wheat speculators, died abroad, insolvent.
3. Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange, died just after release from Sing Sing Prison
4. Albert Fall, member of a US President’s cabinet, was pardoned from prison so that he could die at home.
5. Jess Livermore, greatest bear on Wall Street, committed suicide.
6. Leon Fraser, president of the Bank of International Settlements, committed suicide.
7. Ivar Krueger, head of the world’s greatest monopoly, committed suicide.

Our purpose isn’t being focused on money. Nor is it being focused on being specific or maybe worthwhile possessions. Sometimes the things that we want badly try to give us significance in our lives and purpose. Maybe it is a home or a beautiful car or some other kind of a dream that we’ve always had. But once that dream is over, purpose then comes to an end. And then we begin to go through life again just enduring.

Sometimes its power that seems to give us a temporary sense of purpose. Power often gives us that appearance that we’re going after something worthwhile. It was Lord Acton who said ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ Lincoln said ‘Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to see and test a man’s character, give him power.’

May I add one more – achievement, to that list? Sometimes we allow achievement to begin to be our purpose in life, to attain a position, accomplish a goal or have a relationship with the right person. And we think that we have attained purpose.

But friends, none of these things is permanent. All of them are fleeting and however we look at it and say – this is what the world defines as purpose and people seem to be going after it, a deep sense of discontentment will overwhelm us when we find that our purpose is in these kinds of fleeting achievements. Deduction, association, imitation, money, power, achievement. What is it that can allow us to go through life with a sense of peace and joy and calm? It’s only in being able to know whether you are fulfilling the purpose that God has for you.

Purpose for somebody who believes in God is not manufactured by will power but is defined for us by God. It is not until an individual comes before God and wrestles with his or her reason for existence, developing convictions about themselves and their life based on scriptures, that we can know that we have embraced a valid purpose for our lives. God has a purpose, my friends, for each one of us on this call. God has a unique purpose. The world would have us move from activities to objectives to purpose. But for us who believe in God we move from purpose to objectives, then that defines our activities.

How do we know our purpose in life? May I submit to you 3 questions to ask yourselves?

1. What has God gifted me to do? What are the gifts that He has given me?
2. What has God called me to do? What is it that you believe is your calling in life?
3. In what way am I equipped to do it?

Remember, God never calls a person to do what he is not gifted or equipped to do. An understanding of that gives us purpose. 1 Thessalonians 5:24 says this: “Faithful is He who has called you and He also will do it through you.” And so the pressure is taken off of you to perform. Once you know your calling in life, you understand your gifting and you’re able to see all the things that God has equipped you, your education, your past, your resources, to be able to find that sense of purpose and you’re able to walk really on air, if I can use that kind of phrase, you’re able to walk through life knowing why you were born.

How do you know you’re walking in your sense of purpose? You will see that there is fruit in your life. You will see that there is patience, there is godliness, there is temperance and there is virtue. 2 Peter 1:5-8 says this: For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Secondly you’ll just get a satisfying sense of having on your heart, what is on God’s heart. And there’s nothing better than to know that you’re walking in the will of an eternal God who made all these mountains and trees and sustains them, to be doing what he has, the way in which He has made you, in fulfilling your will. To know that is to give you satisfaction.

Thirdly, it will provide contentment in your lives. It will allow you to go home contented. In 1Timothy 6:6 it says, Godliness with contentment is great gain.

Lastly it will yield a keener sense of dependence upon God. All of us want to have an outside source that will make the decisions that we make every day, to make them wisely; to be able to do what is right. And what more beautiful thing than to know that we can depend on an all powerful God. God himself says: “without me, you cannot do anything.” You can do many things of insignificance, but things of significance, you cannot do without me.

So I ask you this morning, have you understood your purpose in life? Do you need to make certain changes in your life? Have you been focusing on wealth and achievement and power as opposed to finding out the DNA of your life that is unique to you, that God put in you and saying ‘I want to know my purpose here on earth, my calling, my gifts, and how I have been equipped.

My prayer for each on of you is that today God would speak to you, help you to understand that purpose. That you would enjoy contentment in your life, that your life will not be seeking after a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow that never seems to end or the mirage in the desert. Or that you will find purpose and enjoy life and enjoy the contentment that comes from knowing the uniqueness of who you are.