Secret #1
Discover Your Unique Purpose
In his poem “The People, Yes,” Carl Sandburg sums up the history of humanity in three simple words: “Born, troubled, died.”1 Unfortunately, that depressing description is closer to the mark than most of us are willing to admit. I’m reminded of the Chicago sewer worker who described his life this way: “I dig the ditch to earn the money to buy the food to get the strength to dig the ditch.” Get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch television, go to bed . . . and the cycle continues.
Life is meant to be more than an endless and mindless treadmill. Jesus said, “I came that [you] may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Jesus is in the business of saving and satisfying lives—of making life rich and rewarding. One way He accomplishes this is by giving each of us a unique purpose to fulfill during our brief stay here on earth. This purpose could be described as the specific story God wants to communicate to the world through your life.
The Bigger Story
When God decided to create human beings, He determined to create them in His image. Genesis 1:27 tells us, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
God then commanded His image bearers—Adam and Eve—to have children, rule over the earth, and create a thriving culture. Before sin entered the world, Adam and Eve experienced a deep, intimate relationship with the Lord.
From the beginning, the story God was communicating was that obedience to and fellowship with Him were the secret to experiencing abundant life. Theologians have summarized God’s overarching purpose for each of us like this: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever.”2 Let’s unpack what that general purpose means.
Glorifying God
Each of us was created to glorify God. The apostle John emphasizes this truth in Revelation 4:11 when he pictures the twenty-four elders—who represent the church in heaven—encircling God’s throne and saying, “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”
God created you to glorify Him in everything you do. This is why the apostle Paul instructs us, “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). In other words, the overriding question we should use to evaluate every decision and every activity is this: “How will this action or this decision make God look bigger and better to others?”
Elijah grasped this primary purpose in life. His entire existence revolved around demonstrating to a largely unbelieving world that the God of Israel was the only true God.
Is that true of you? Can you honestly say that your priority in everything you do is to motivate others to follow God? Our story begins with making God the priority in our lives so that others will be encouraged to do the same.
Enjoying God
Yes, we have a duty to glorify God, but there is also an accompanying delight in doing so! In fact, as John Piper says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”3 God wants our lives to glorify Him, but He also wants us to enjoy Him, just as David described:
You will make known to me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
In Your right hand there are pleasures forever. (Ps. 16:11)
We spoke earlier of the unbroken fellowship Adam and Eve experienced with God. But the Lord wants to give us more than His presence; He wants to give us “pleasures.” In Hebrew, this word means “sweetness” or “delight.” What are the delightful gifts found in God’s hand? David lists some of them in Psalm 103: forgiveness of sins, healing from sickness, deliverance from death, enrichment in life, and compassion for the oppressed. For all these—and more—David declared, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits” (Ps. 103:2).
One way we enjoy God is by thanking Him for His blessings and mulling over His attributes. For example, when you go to a nice restaurant you (hopefully) do not wolf down your meal. You savor every course—the appetizers, the soup, the salad, the entrée, the dessert. You linger over the food, taking your time to relish every dish, taste every morsel, and enjoy every moment of the experience.
That is what God wants us to do with Him—to savor in our hearts and minds His blessings and character. Again, this is what Jesus had in mind when He said He came to give life abundantly (John 10:10)—that our relationship with God would be so rich we would want to spend every minute of every day in His presence, living to bring Him glory, and enjoying the unending benefits of His favor.
Elijah: A Case Study in Glorifying and Enjoying God
As I noted in the last chapter, Elijah was not a spiritual superman. He was a spiritual everyman—“a man with a nature like ours” (James 5:17). Yet, even though he was an ordinary person, he understood he existed for an extraordinary purpose—to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. From the moment Elijah showed up on the scene, he said his whole purpose was to be “zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts” (1 Kings 19:10).
But to fulfill that purpose, Elijah had to demonstrate his zeal for God in concrete actions. To fulfill his general purpose, he had to discover his unique purpose in life. He had to tell the story God had specifically written for him.
The same is true for you and me. All of us are called to point people to God, but the path we follow to do that is unique for each of us. Every Christian has both a general purpose—to glorify and enjoy God—as well as a specific purpose (or “calling”) through which we do so.
Elijah’s specific calling was to serve God as a prophet to the nation of Israel. He would spend his life confronting the Israelites for forgetting the only true God. Whether it was through his courageous denouncement of the nation’s wicked king and queen, his challenge to the false prophets on Mount Carmel, or his quiet faith in God’s supernatural provisions, Elijah understood that all the puzzle pieces of his life were part of God’s unique calling that, in turn, fulfilled his ultimate purpose of glorifying God. And it was his dogged pursuit of this purpose that made Elijah such a significant, successful, and satisfied individual.
When we read about Elijah in the Bible, his introduction is sudden and stark: “Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead . . .” (1 Kings 17:1).
Little is known of Elijah’s life before his appointment as God’s prophet. Nevertheless, we can piece together some clues as to how he came to understand his purpose in life. His introduction tells us something significant about his background and his personality.
His Background
Names are a big deal. In our culture, we generally name our children after loved ones—a grandmother or grandfather, for example—or because we simply like the sound of certain names, especially how first names sound with our last names. But in the biblical culture, names were often given as a distinctive symbol for what parents wished for their child’s future or were given as a descriptive indicator of their child’s character. For example, the Old Testament patriarch Jacob’s name literally means “heel catcher,” which was appropriate since he “came forth with his hand holding on to [his twin brother’s] heel” (Gen. 25:26).
The Hebrew word for Jacob could also mean “trickster.” Jacob lived up to this meaning when he tricked his brother, Esau, out of his birthright (25:27–34), and tricked his father, Isaac, into giving him the blessing of the firstborn (27:1–38). Years later, God changed Jacob’s name to Israel, which means “he strives with God,” when Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord (32:24–28; Hosea 12:4).
If we look closely at Elijah’s name, we’ll discover that it is made up of three Hebrew words: El, which is short for Elohim (God), Jah, the abbreviation for Jehovah, and the letter I, the personal pronoun “my” or “mine.” Putting all three together, Elijah’s name literally means “My God is Jehovah” or “The Lord is my God.”
Think about that. Every time his mother called him by name to wash up for supper, Elijah was reminded that one God ruled supreme and made an exclusive claim on his life. “Hurry up, ‘The Lord is my God’ and wash your hands before the meatloaf gets cold!” When his friends came to the house, it was as if they asked, “Can ‘My God is Jehovah’ come out to play?” After a lifetime of being reminded that he belonged to God alone, it makes sense that when Elijah appeared before Ahab, he would say, “As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand” (1 Kings 17:1). (By the way, parents, regardless of what we name our children, we should continually remind them of their duty and privilege to serve the living God.)
But Elijah’s entrance on the scene in 1 Kings 17:1 gives us more than the name of the prophet who would confront Ahab and Jezebel. The verse also tells us where Elijah came from: Tishbe. What is interesting—and it gives us a clue as to how ordinary Elijah really was—is that his hometown is somewhat of a mystery. Archeologists have not found the exact location of Tishbe, but wherever it was, it was about as significant a place as Mud Lick, Kentucky; Oatmeal, Texas; or Boogertown, North Carolina. (Yes, these are real places!)
A friend of mine once owned a hunting cabin in the wilds of West Texas. On one hunting trip he invited his pastor to come along. After driving for hours, weaving this way and that, and bouncing over rut-filled roads, they finally arrived at the location. The pastor had been warned that the cabin was in the middle of nowhere, but when he got out of the truck and looked around, he said, “This is truly nowhere.” My friend thought the comment appropriate, so he named his hunting lease “Truly Nowhere.”
That’s the kind of place Elijah was from—truly nowhere.
At some point, Elijah moved from Tishbe to the region of Gilead, just east of the Jordan River. It was a rough and rugged place, a place of solitude and silence. Dense forests covered its hills, and wildlife teemed in its valleys. No doubt the people who lived in Gilead were just as rough and rugged as the landscape—tanned, muscular, and leathery. And Elijah was one of them, dressing as a backwoodsman in coarse camel hair and leather (2 Kings 1:8). He was no spit-shined, polished, and sophisticated person of wealth and position. He was an ordinary, hardworking man. But it did not matter. God had a difficult mission for Elijah—a purpose that did not entail cocktail parties and diplomacy. God needed a rough and ready man—a nobody from nowhere to become God’s somebody to confront a godless and wicked king.
It is not just Elijah’s hometown that is a mystery, however. We know nothing of his family, his parents, whether he had siblings, or to which tribe he belonged. However, his parents—whoever they were—must have instilled in him an understanding that his purpose was to glorify the living God. They must have impressed upon him a love and fear of God—a passion to see God worshiped as the true Lord of Israel. They certainly taught him the Scriptures. The first thing Elijah said to King Ahab, after introducing himself, was “surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word” (1 Kings 17:1).
Elijah’s message was one of judgment and was based on God’s Word as recorded in Deuteronomy. Elijah declared that God would judge Israel for her idolatry. Moses had warned the children of Israel that God would “shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its fruit; and you will perish quickly from the good land which the LORD is giving you” (Deut. 11:17). That was exactly what Elijah predicted. And for three and a half years it came about—“heaven [became] bronze, and the earth [became] iron, [and] the rain of [the] land [became] powder and dust” (Deut. 28:23–24; see James 5:17).
The false god Baal was believed to control the weather. But Elijah’s “no dew, no rain” pronouncement was a direct challenge to the imaginary Baal under whose spell the Israelites had fallen. Ahab and Israel would see what sort of god Baal was. If he could not produce rain, then he would be found to be what he in fact was—a blind, dumb, and deaf hunk of metal.
Elijah’s parents—though unknown and unnamed to us—taught their son well. The knowledge of God’s Word they instilled in Elijah was instrumental in his discovery of God’s unique purpose for his life. Elijah’s parents remind me of my parents, now in heaven. My father was the reason that my mother came to faith in Jesus, taking her to a Billy Graham crusade in Dallas where she placed her faith in Christ. He and my mother joined First Baptist Church of Dallas—the church I have the honor of pastoring today. Two years after I was born, my dad traveled to Chicago for one purpose: to visit the Moody Bible Institute bookstore and to purchase the best collection of Christian books he could find for me. He invested $200—about one month’s salary at the time—to ensure that I grew up knowing, loving, and fearing the Lord. And Elijah’s parents did the same for him.
His Personality
If you like fire and brimstone type preaching then Elijah is your man. He was not one to mince words. As one of my mentors put it, Elijah was not a “mild-mannered man preaching a mild-mannered sermon, teaching people how to be more mild-mannered.” Elijah’s preaching was pointed, like a sharp stick shoved into someone’s sternum. Appearing at Ahab’s doorstep, Elijah went right to the heart of the matter: God’s judgment was coming. He declared, “As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word” (1 Kings 17:1). Remarkable! This nobody from “Truly Nowhere” appeared before the king of Israel and predicted a national calamity.
When I read this verse, I think about my own experience preaching to the President of the United States and his family on the day of his inauguration. Although I knew the president and considered him a friend, there was something quite intimidating about staring into the eyes of one of the most powerful people in the world and delivering God’s message, even though my message was one of encouragement, not condemnation.
By contrast, Elijah had a hard message to deliver to the king. “It is time to make a decision,” Elijah told Ahab. “Who will it be: God or Baal? Until you abandon Baal and return to God, there will be no dew or rain unless I say so. Period.” For Ahab and Jezebel, it was time to get rid of Baal and return to God—or Israel’s rivers would dry up, crops would fail, and people would die.
This was Elijah’s story, his God-ordained purpose for living. He heard the call of God and faithfully began to carry out his responsibilities as a prophet to the nation of Israel. God’s assignment for Elijah was not easy, but it was clear: deliver a politically incorrect message of judgment to a wayward and wicked nation.
Discover God’s Unique Purpose for Your Life
Your specific story is different than Elijah’s, but it is just as significant and important. Elijah was a unique individual, never to come again. The same is true of you. You are a unique individual, never to come again. In the words of David, “The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men” (Ps. 33:13). And what does God see in each of us? A life individually fashioned by Him (v. 15).
Every baby is a brand-new creation from the hand of God—uniquely created to accomplish a unique purpose. Peter affirmed this when he wrote, “God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. . . . Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 4:10–11 NLT).
If you are going to have an extraordinary life—a life of significance—then you must discover your special purpose. But before we learn ways to uncover it, let’s examine some of the benefits of understanding your purpose in life.
The Benefits of Discovering Your Purpose
I recently read a story about a group of analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch who concluded that there is a 20 to 50 percent chance that the world in which we live is not real—it is a virtual simulation, like the Matrix movies made popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s. (Their speculation made me wonder if my weekly deposits to their bank have disappeared into some imaginary virtual reality as well!)
You may chuckle at such an absurd idea, but many scientists and philosophers believe it is possible. They argue that the future of humanity will take one of three courses: “extinction before reaching a ‘posthuman’ stage, reaching posthuman existence but not simulating evolutionary history, [or] we are in the matrix already.”4 If we are in the matrix, they contend, we cannot know that we are in it.
In other words, we cannot know if what we call reality is really real. And if that is the case, then can we really say life has a purpose? This reminds me of something I read from Christian thinker Os Guinness:
Out of more than a score of great civilizations in human history, modern Western civilization is the very first to have no agreed-on answer to the question of the purpose of life. Thus more ignorance, confusion—and longing—surround this topic now than at almost any time in history. The trouble is that, as modern people, we have too much to live with and too little to live for. Some feel they have time but not enough money; others feel they have money but not enough time. But for most us, in the midst of material plenty, we have spiritual poverty.5
Could anything be more spiritually bankrupt than believing that you are living in a computer simulated, virtual world—that everything you know and love is not real? I can only imagine what the apostle Paul would say to such nonsense—probably something like this:
Live life . . . with a due sense of responsibility, not as men who do not know the meaning and purpose of life but as those who do. Make the best use of your time, despite all the difficulties of these days. Don’t be vague but firmly grasp what you know to be the will of God. (Eph. 5:15–17 Phillips)
Knowing Your Purpose Clarifies Priorities in Life
Paul said to “make the best use of your time”—make the most of your days on earth. Literally, this means to “buy up the time.” Do not waste your life by wasting your time. As someone said, “Life is like a dollar bill. You can spend it any way you wish—but you can only spend it once.”
Instead of spending your life on frivolous endeavors, invest your life in things that really matter—things that count for eternity. Practice the discipline of saying no not only to evil activities but also to unproductive activities. Unproductive things may not be bad in and of themselves, but they distract you from achieving your unique purpose in life.
For example, I could fill my time with counseling appointments. I pastor a large and diverse church, and people in our congregation have large and diverse problems. But counseling is neither my passion nor my giftedness—it does not fulfill my specific God-given purpose. Nevertheless, people need help, so we have pastors on staff whose purposes are fulfilled by counseling others. To have a significant life and tell the story God wants you to tell, you must never mistake the good for the best.
Knowing Your Purpose Clarifies Uncertainties in Life
Paul said we ought to be wise when it comes to understanding God’s will for our lives. Each of us faces daily decisions—some small, some large. Most have little impact on our lives, while a few have tremendous impact on our lives. Knowing and wisely applying our unique purpose to these decisions—especially major decisions—can save us years of regret.
For example, suppose you are offered a promotion in your company. While the prospect of a higher salary and more prestigious title are appealing to you, the promotion will require you to uproot your family and move to another city—and spend many more hours at work. Should you accept the promotion? It depends. If you still have children at home, your primary way of glorifying God and expanding His kingdom may be through rearing godly children. If the promotion would cause you to neglect that primary responsibility, then accepting it may be the wrong decision. However, if your children are grown and your new job would both maximize your gifts and expand your influence for God, then accepting the promotion might be exactly the right decision.
Knowing Your Purpose Clarifies Difficulties in Life
The apostle Paul was no Pollyanna. He knew life was filled with “difficulties,” as he put it in Ephesians 5:16 (Phillips). In fact, as he wrote these words, Paul was in prison facing possible execution. Had Paul’s life purpose been that of most Christians today—peace, prosperity, pleasure, and the avoidance of pain—his “difficulties” of imprisonment and possible death would have been perplexing. “Why is God allowing this to happen to me when I’ve been so faithful to Him?” Paul could have lamented.
But firmly grasping God’s purpose for his life provided Paul with a completely different perspective on his problems. As he wrote in his letter to the Philippians, he could “rejoice” in his circumstances, knowing that his difficulties were opportunities in disguise for him to fulfill his life purpose of sharing the gospel with as many people as possible (Phil. 1:18).
How so? Paul’s imprisonment gave him the opportunity to share Christ with the Roman soldiers assigned to guard him, who in turn shared the gospel with the highest-ranking military officers in Rome (v. 13). Not only that, but ordinary Christians were being emboldened to share their faith because of Paul’s example (v. 14). Had Paul’s life purpose been self-focused, then he would have thrown himself a giant pity party in prison. But because Paul understood and embraced his unique purpose—to spread the gospel to the Gentiles—he declared, “In this I rejoice because Christ is proclaimed” (see v. 18).
Understanding your unique purpose gives you a different prism through which to view the difficulties that God allows or even brings into your life. When I think of that truth, I am reminded of the example of Staff Sergeant Travis Mills. He was on his third tour of duty in Afghanistan when he set down his rucksack on an undetected IED (improvised explosive device). When Mills came to—on his twenty-fifth birthday—he discovered he had lost all four limbs and the purpose of his life. As he tells the story in his book, Tough As They Come, Mills tried to persuade his wife, Kelsey, that she should divorce him; she could take all their possessions and start a new life with their baby daughter. Kelsey reminded him that’s not how marriage works. She would stick by his side and see him through this trauma.
Mills questioned why God had allowed this to happen to him. He even demanded his sister-in-law remove a plaque she hung in his hospital room with the promise of Joshua 1:9 written on it: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” But, in time, Mills came to understand that God had a purpose for his life—even without his arms and legs.
Today, Travis Mills works through his foundation to assist wounded warriors and travels the country speaking to veterans’ groups, large corporations, and civic organizations about never giving up and never giving in—about being brave and courageous. A man who heard Mills’s testimony and message credits him with saving his life. I would say that is a significant purpose in life, wouldn’t you?
Like Travis Mills, those with a clear focus on a purpose bigger than themselves see difficulties as opportunities both to grow in their own faith and also to glorify God to others.
The STORY God Wants to Tell through You
Since God made only one version of you—custom designed for a one-of-a-kind assignment—it is important to understand how to discover the unique purpose for which God created and gifted you. This is the story God wants to tell through you, so let’s use the word story to help us.
God’s great desire for all of us is that we come to faith in Jesus Christ and then mature in our faith. This is the surest way for us to glorify God and enjoy Him. What does maturity look like? Paul gives us a clue in 1 Thessalonians 5:15–18:
See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people. Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Seeking the best for others, rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks does not come by osmosis. This kind of maturity only comes through marinating our hearts and minds thoroughly in God’s Word. Paul told Timothy:
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16–17)
Scripture is given to teach us who God is and who we are—and how He has fashioned, equipped, and gifted us. The Bible provides lessons and instruction on life so we might develop the skills, knowledge, and insight necessary to identify and fulfill our purpose.
God’s Word is also given for reproof and correction. When we sin we turn away from our purpose of glorifying God, and God uses His Word to point us back to the truth. Scripture highlights and rectifies errors and persuades us to conform to God’s standard. When we do that—when we are living in the truth—the Lord reveals His unique purpose for us and blesses us as we seek to fulfill that purpose.
Scripture is also given to train us in righteousness. The Bible would only be a punitive book if all it did were rebuke and correct. But God uses His Word to gently guide us toward maturity—toward being the kind of believers described in 1 Thessalonians 5.
None of these benefits can be experienced apart from reading and applying the Bible. God’s Word is His immediate means of communicating His will—including His unique purpose—to you. Do not misinterpret what I am saying. You will not discover your profession in the Bible (unless you are into fishing, tax collecting, or shepherding). Nor will the Bible reveal to you the name of your mate (unless it is Boaz or Mary). But saturating your mind with the commands of God and the unique stories of God’s servants in the past is the beginning point for discovering God’s specific purpose for your life in the present.
Talk to Others
Proverbs 13:10, 20 says, “Wisdom is with those who receive counsel. . . . He who walks with wise men will be wise.” When it comes to discovering your unique purpose, it’s wise to talk with those who know you best. They can see things you cannot see—both your abilities and your inabilities. All of us have blind spots, and if we are wise we will ask trusted family and friends to point out areas in our lives that are hidden to our eyes.
Theologians and pastors often refer to a person’s unique purpose as a “calling,” which one scholar defined as “an inner desire given by the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God, and confirmed by the community of Christ.”6 You may think you have a knack for something. And as a believer growing in your faith and spending time in God’s Word, you feel called to use that gift in a particular way. Good. You are on the road to discovering your special story. But to be sure you are on the right road, God provides an important road sign you ought not to ignore: the wise counsel of other people.
You see, “God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well” (Rom. 12:6 NLT), but we do not always appreciate or understand the gifts He has so graciously given. That’s why we need other people in our lives—people who can guide and confirm what we believe to be our unique purpose.
My ninth-grade speech teacher, Nancy Fry, did this for me. She was a petite, older woman who barked like a drill sergeant and wore what appeared to be laced-up army boots to complete the image. Her students were scared to death of her—and for good reason! When timid students would take their turn to stand up before their peers and deliver their assigned speech, Miss Fry would often climb on the top of her desk at the back of the room and yell at the top of her voice, “Louder!”
But for some reason, Miss Fry took a special interest in me. She would work with me after school, and one day she said to me, “Robert, you are going to make a great preacher someday. You could sell anyone anything—and that’s scary!” She was the first person outside of my family who envisioned success for me as a speaker. And while I could have used my speaking ability in any number of ways, I obeyed the Lord’s leading and chose to dedicate that ability to preaching God’s Word.
Years later, when I was just beginning my ministry, I received word that Miss Fry had passed away—and in her will she stipulated that she wanted me to conduct her funeral service. Knowing how particular she would have been about who spoke at her service, I considered that the highest compliment of all! I am so grateful that in those formative years of my life, when I was trying to determine God’s unique purpose for me, God placed someone like Nancy Fry—and many others afterward—whom He used to steer me toward my life’s calling.
However, God can also use the counsel of other people to point out our liabilities. When I had finished my Master of Theology degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, I was burned out on school, having spent three years in college followed by four years in graduate school. I had thought about pursuing a doctorate, but frankly, I was looking for an excuse not to.
One day I scheduled lunch with an older, more seasoned minister and told him my dilemma, laying out all the reasons I really didn’t need a doctorate. “Look at pastor so-and-so,” I said. “He doesn’t have a doctorate, and he has a huge church and a thriving ministry.” My friend looked at me and said, “That’s right, Robert. But you don’t have his looks or his voice. You’d better get your doctorate!” Ouch! I saw that not-so-gentle-reproof as God’s leading and followed my friend’s advice. Seeking counsel from those who know us is one of God’s primary ways for us to discover His specific calling for our lives.
Obey Your Passions
Many people are shocked when they hear me say, “One of the primary ways God directs you is through the desires He puts in your heart. If you want to know what you should do, ask yourself the question, ‘What do I want to do?’”
I can hear some people protesting, “Wait a minute! Doesn’t the Bible say that our hearts are wicked, deceptive, and can never be trusted?” That’s certainly true about our desires before we become a Christian. But one of the results of salvation is the transformation of our hearts—our desires—to conform to God’s desires. The closer we move toward God, the more our desires reflect His desires for us.
If you are in a growing and intimate relationship with God, then the Bible teaches that He will mold your desires to conform to His plan for your life. To put it another way, when God controls your life, He controls your desires, just as David explained in Psalm 37:4–5:
Delight yourself in the LORD;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
Another word for desire is passion. To discover your unique purpose, ask yourself, What am I passionate about? What needs do I see in the world that must be met? Sometimes our passion arises from a deep hurt in our life. Candace Lightner lost her daughter to a drunk driver and as a result decided to devote her energies to removing the menace of drunk drivers from the nation’s highways through the organization she founded, Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
Other times, our passion flows out of our desire to glorify God. As a teenager, Bill Hybels was always looking for ways to share Christ with his fellow students. One day he invited a non-Christian friend to go to church with him. The poorly presented music and mediocre message so embarrassed Bill—and so turned off his friend—that Bill determined to devote his life to creating a church where everything was done with excellence and where Christians could bring their unbelieving friends without apologizing. That experience was the beginning of Willow Creek Church—and thousands of other churches like it.
Christian writer Frederick Buechner said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”7 One of the primary ways God reveals the unique purpose for our lives is through the passion He has placed in our hearts—a passion that will meet a very real need in the world.
Yet many Christians live under a black cloud of doubt, believing that their passion to accomplish their purpose is somehow sinful. They are convinced that the best way to discover God’s will is to ask, What is absolutely the most miserable thing I could imagine spending my life doing? That must be God’s will for me! They are convinced that God’s plan for them should be the hardest, most distasteful existence they can possibly imagine. Nothing could be further from the truth! God is more interested in your discovering His unique plan for you than even you are. And one of the primary ways He reveals that purpose to you is through the desires He places in your heart.
R||ecognize Your Gifts and Abilities
God will not only give you the desire (passion) to fulfill His purpose for life but He will also endow you with the gifts and abilities you need for that purpose. The apostle Paul affirmed, “It is God who is at work within you, giving you the will [desire] and the power [gifts and abilities] to achieve his purpose” (Phil. 2:13 Phillips).
The common idea that “You can be whatever you want to be in life” is a feel-good sentiment that has no basis in reality. For example, many of us were told as children, “Anyone in America can become the president of the United States.” Yet the truth is that most people do not have the gifts, temperament, or skills necessary to perform that job.
Although you cannot be anything you want to be, God has given you all the gifts you need to be everything He wants you to be. Just as understanding your desires is key to discovering God’s purpose for your life, recognizing your gifts and abilities can help you determine the story God has designed you to tell.
The apostle Paul encouraged us to perform an honest assessment of our gifts and abilities when he wrote, “I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment” (Rom. 12:3).
Paul is encouraging us to be realistic when it comes to evaluating our gifts. For example, if you feel like God is calling you to become a doctor but you have no gifts in science and pass out at the sight of blood, you might want to rethink your vocation! Perhaps you envision yourself preaching God’s Word to thousands. Yet if you break out into a cold sweat when you face a large crowd and have the “gift” of putting people to sleep when you speak, you might consider another calling. I realize there are examples in the Bible of God occasionally calling people to roles for which they had no gifts, but usually God’s purpose for us aligns with God’s gifts to us.
This principle is clearly seen in Exodus 31, when the Lord tells Moses that He has uniquely gifted Bezalel as a skilled craftsman:
I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship, to make artistic designs for work in gold, in silver, and in bronze, and in the cutting of stones for settings, and in the carving of wood. (Exod. 31:3–5)
God did not call Bezalel to be the leader of God’s people—that was Moses’s job. Nor did God call Bezalel to be the priest of God’s people—that was Aaron’s role. Rather, God called Bezalel to be the craftsman of God’s tabernacle. If Bezalel had tried to lead the people and Moses had tried to carve the stone, both would have been a disaster.
“God normally calls us along the line of our giftedness,” Os Guinness observed.8 If you don’t have a clear understanding of your gifts, ask yourself the following questions:
- What do I enjoy doing?
- What things do other people see me do and say, “You were born to do that”?
- What do I do that seems effortless to me?
- What is the common denominator in the three most satisfying and successful things I’ve done in my life?
Accurately assessing your gifts is key to discovering the purpose for which God has created you. Remember, God did not create you to tell someone else’s story. Instead, He has gifted you to communicate a unique message through your life that will glorify Him.
Yield to the Leading of the Spirit
Saturating your mind with Scripture, consulting with others, following your passion, and determining your gifts are all vital in discovering your unique purpose. But living out your purpose requires surrendering your life to the control of God’s Holy Spirit.
From the time I was a little boy, I felt that my life’s work would be as an executive producer in the television industry. I was interested in communication and finances—both integral parts of that profession. I spent every spare moment I could reading professional journals and books about the television industry. I had no doubt this was how God wanted me to spend my life.
But all that changed one summer day when I was fifteen years old. After the noon service at our church’s youth camp—as everyone was racing to be first in line for lunch—God communicated to me very clearly that He had a different plan for my life than I had thought. On that summer day God told me I was to be a pastor. (Sometimes people ask if God spoke to me audibly. I jokingly reply, “Actually, it was louder than that!”)
None of my gifts or interests changed that day; they were just redirected toward another calling. But before I could start fulfilling my purpose, I had to surrender to God’s Spirit and say, “Yes, Lord.”
We must learn how to listen when God’s Spirit speaks to us and then learn to obey—even when obedience seems absurd. For example, from a human perspective it was foolish for Abraham to strike out for an unknown land or to offer Isaac as a sacrifice.
It was idiotic for Joshua to march his army around Jericho with nothing but shouts and trumpets.
It was impractical for Gideon to go into battle against larger numbers with only three hundred men.
It was dangerous for Rahab to harbor the Jewish spies who scoped out Jericho.
It was risky for Elijah to confront the king and pronounce God’s judgment.
But each of these men and women knew they had heard the unmistakable call of God and responded with total and unconditional obedience. Had they chosen not to surrender to God’s plan for their lives, we would not be talking about them thousands of years later.
Pastor and author Max Lucado has a simple formula for discovering your purpose in life: “Use your uniqueness (what you do) to make a big deal out of God (why you do it) every day of your life (where you do it). At the convergence of all three, you’ll find . . . your sweet spot.”9 Discovering your “sweet spot” is the first step to living an extraordinary life.