Purpose And Why You Need One

Well, I've been thinking about purpose. Purpose of Life, purpose of existence etc. Personally, this has been a big struggle for me. The question "Why are we here?" was never too far in the back of my mind. Having been brought up in a christian family, I believe in God out of blind faith, just because 'they said so'. It was all I knew. That was until things started going wrong for me. Until I became old enough to think for myself. That's generally what happens when things don't go our way; we blame something. And since I had blamed everything else already and still had no satisfaction, I blamed God. In fact, I altogether stopped believing in Him.

Now many people replace God with science, saying that God is in our head, that we are our own God, God only exists for those who 'need' Him. Well, while those ideas and theories satisfied the 'logical' (or so I thought) thinking that continuously battled in my head, I felt an emptiness that I could not ignore. Not just an emptiness, but a hunger, a crying out for it to be filled with something. I constantly hear people saying "I feel empty", "I have nothing to do, nothing worth doing". Those come out of the mouths of people who feel that they have no purpose in life. Why?

Because without a God, there is no purpose. Ask an atheist what their purpose is and they will say something along the lines of "To be the best I can and pursue happiness". But most of us know that the best we can do is more often than not, completely inadequate. 

Without a God, we are only biological beings on an earth accidentally formed with no purpose but to pass. 

When I rejected God, that is what I became. Pointless, meaningless, directionless accident here fore a blip of time. Any impact I make on the world will be for nothing because the world itself is for nothing. Live for nothing, die for nothing. There was nothing more and nothing less. Many people then come to the conclusion that, since they are without purpose, they will be their own God, create a purpose. Do what they want, and pursue money, fame, fortune, popularity, drugs, sex, love or lust...

Well I tried that. I tried making myself stick think. I tried alcohol on many more than one occasion. I tried parties, I tried popularity, I had material possessions. Yet nothing even began to fill that gaping God-shaped hole. I'll be honest, each one of those made me happy temporarily, but as I did that more and more, I found that even the pleasure, the satisfaction, the temporary high became shorter and shorter, more and more meaningless, and left me more desperate for a purpose. 

I hit rock bottom. I was never thin enough because the mirror lied to me. I was never drunk enough because I always sobered up. I never had enough friends because none of them gave me a purpose. I never had enough, because I could always have more. Each one left me feeling more hopeless and useless.

I find that many people are at this point; pulsating feelings of loneliness, hopelessness and emptiness that would return with every beat of their heart. But I find that many people manage to become numb to it, because it's normal...right? If everybody else is living the same life, then...it's okay to not have a purpose...right?

We were made for so much more - - - 

Purpose: The reason for which something is DONE or CREATED or for which something EXISTS.

To live life with purpose, requires us to be able to see things clearly. Now with the mindset of purposeless living, how on earth can we live a purposeful, meaningful life? What is in our heart and mind emerge in how we live. I did purposeless, empty things because I had emptiness in my heart and mind. Now, the definition of Purpose that the dictionary gave me had the three words that I capitalized. DONE, CREATED and EXISTS.

Let's start with CREATED. In order for something to be created, there must be a Creator. Therefore, without a creator, there is no purpose. That Creator is God.

Purpose: The reason for which something is CREATED.

Second word: EXISTS. We were created, therefore we EXIST. Purpose: The reason for which something EXISTS.

Third and final word: DONE. or to DO. 

God CREATED us to have a relationship with Him, to know Him, to love Him, to praise Him and to serve Him. We are not our own. Now, that may seem like a horrible thought, to be a servant, but in reality, it is serving the God that made us, the God that Loves us and the God that wants us to know Him. And THAT is PURPOSE. That is humility and a FULL life because we are doing what the all knowing God wants us to do. We are part of an AMAZING plan.

God put us into EXISTENCE. Fact is, we exist. Therefore we must have a purpose. Every single beloved one of us. :) 

So our purpose is to DO what God has created us to do (To love, serve, worship, know, trust...) But we screw up. We disobey God. We may think that we are okay people, and that we deserve heaven. But Heaven is PERFECT. If imperfect people go to heaven, it would no longer be perfect. Our standards have been lowered because of the fallen world that we live in. By ourselves, we have no hope to get into the perfect heaven, with the perfect God. But that's where the word "DONE" comes in. God provided a way for u to carry on living with a purpose. He wiped the slate clean. He bore the world's sin, became the lowest of the low, so that we could start over. He paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we could have another chance. Like Jesus said on the cross as he took his final breath, "It is FINISHED". That was it. DONE. He went ALL the way. We were no longer hopeless. With his dying words came HOPE, another chance and A PURPOSE.

Jeremiah 29:22 "For I know the plans I have fore you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future". 

Now that is purpose. And that is the only purpose I have found. There is no other.

This message isn't just for those who feel like they have no purpose, it's also to remind those Christians out there who have grown numb to purpose. Who need to be reminded why there are here. You are here for a greater purpose than you can EVER imagine.

Ephesians  4:17-24

Living as Children of Light

"So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in the due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with continual lust for more.

You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desired; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

In all of this, THE most important thing that each one of us must realize, is that God loved you enough to send Him only son to die for you, and that He still loves you enough to continuously offer you freedom, hope, love, security, eternal life and best of all, a relationship with Him.

(P.S Just to let you know, the things I wrote are not 'theological', but simply to help understand purpose. It's not proof that God exists but simply an expression of how real He is to me. So speaking from my opinion and faith, God exists, I know, because I talked to Him this morning.)