Episode 69 - Driven By Purpose

Nobody sets out on a journey without a reason (even if the journey itself is the reason). In fact no-one does anything with something motivating them to do so. Purpose is a fundamental part of all of our lives and it drives everything that we do. At the moment I’m not really able to do all that much and as such my sense of purpose has diminished. It’s not that I feel I have no purpose, for in all things, wherever I am in life, I always feel that my purpose is to do whatever I am doing for God’s glory as Paul urges us to in the book of Colossians. The trouble is that when I feel unable to do anything, I feel unable to fulfil any purpose and so in a way feel purposeless. I feel like a raft bobbing up and in the middle of a wide ocean with no direction and no way to move myself forward.

How the Horizon Sometimes Feels...

This is not the first time in my life that I have felt like this. In this instance this feeling comes from not being able to do much, but the feeling of purposelessness can have many sources. It can come from feeling that you are making no progress in what you have set out to achieve, or even by achieving it. It can come from a change in circumstance or from there being no change at all for far too long. It can come from defeat and it can come from success. Whatever the reasons I have felt this way in the past, I can see that God has always lead my out of it and used this time to reenergise and redirect me. So I may be a powerless raft stranded at sea, but God is the power that moves the oceans currents, and I will draw strength by remembering His constant faithfulness all throughout my life.

One of the benefits of feeling purposeless because I’m not able to do very much, is that it gives me plenty of time to think about it. To think about what gives us purpose, and what our purpose is. We are all of course unique and as such, we all have a unique purpose, one that no-one else has, and one that changes throughout our lives too. But whilst we each have our own specific purpose, we also all have a universal purpose that never changes, the very reason that we as individuals and mankind as a species was put on this earth. Simply to know God. Now it should not be surprising that this is something that is easily overlooked in a culture that puts great worth on achievement above all else. But God didn’t make us simply to achieve something. If God was looking for results, He would just have done it Himself. He’d do it all a lot better than any of us could and have it completed with effortless speed too. He doesn’t just want us to do, but to be. With Him. To know Him and to spend time with Him. I have to confess that whilst I have always known this, this is something that I all too often and all too easily forget. And so, I will rejoice in this time of lost purpose, and use it to once again find my original purpose; to be with God.