The Purpose of Our Lives
7.3.23 The Purpose of Our Lives
God participated in our creation, creating each one of us, and marking us for a purpose in His kingdom which would fulfill us in all that we do. Of course, as we grow up in childhood several other things are implanted in us. First, our self-image is crafted out of any guilt and shame we feel between the ages of 3 and 5 at not being able to follow our parents’ rules for us. Second, we absorb all that our parents believe and hold out for us. And, third, there is the impact of the culture which inhabits us as we grow into adulthood. All three of these are implanted in us unconsciously, so we are often unaware of these influences in our lives until perhaps our forties, when we have tried everything that we absorbed unknowingly and start to question who we are and what we really want to do in and with our lives.
We may have been raised in the Christian Church, so we would have some knowledge of who God can be in our lives, but, again, we are looking at all this often from a child’s perspective and may never feel called to love God or to follow Jesus. We can just stay with our beliefs and live our lives as we want. If, however, at some time we hear God’s call to us to go deeper into His teachings and to follow Jesus, then we will begin to experience all the things that we absorbed in our youth and how they really hold us back to adhere to cultural and family norms. As we do follow Jesus, we will be praying for healing of the many issues that burden us, that keep us from a loving relationship with God. And we will really begin to feel lighter and lighter as the burdens absorbed in our childhood are healed; we are becoming free of the burdens that our culture and family put on us, free to become the person we were each created to be.
Well into our journey of following Jesus, we will be given our purpose. And so often our purpose in life has to do with helping the very people who are suffering what we suffered in our lives. As the Rev. Rick Warren writes in Plough Magazine, “Who could better empathize with someone going through a divorce than those who have experienced it themselves.? Who could better minister to someone with an addiction or chronic illness or depression than someone who has struggled with the same issue?”[1]
And still, we grow and change even as we help others, experiencing the Holy Spirit so often in our encounters with the people we help. For our human journey is a lifelong learning process in which we grow and never stop growing, if we are willing to follow Jesus into the fullness of who we were created to be. Think of the peace in your life, the joy of doing something so fulfilling, God’s kind of love that you are expressing everywhere you go, the forgiveness that is a solid part of you now for everyone. Life becomes the gift that never stops giving to us which we then give out into the world. It is amazing!
Questions to ponder over the week: How free do you feel from your family’s desires for you and the culture’s imprint on you? Are you free to live your live as God created you to be in this world? Or, do you still feel tied to all you absorbed as a child? And if you were free to be who God created you to be, do you have any idea of what that would be? How would you find out?
Blessing for the week: May we be the people of God who stand before God as He created us to be. May we lead fulfilling and purposeful lives.
Check out my two websites: patsaidadams.com and deepeningyourfaith.com.
Two Announcements
- I am giving away a 10-week journaling guide to Jesus’s Two Great Commandments. If you are interested, email me at patsadams@gmail.com and I will email it to you, free of charge.
- My latest books, “Called to Help the Poor and Needy” and “A Study Guide to the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount” are now in bookstores and on line. The first is about the more than 2,000 verses in the Bible which detail God’s instructions for caring for those in need. The second is a journaling/pondering guide to Jesus’s most complete sermon.
[1] https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/discipleship/gods-purpose-in-your-pain