You may know the famous verse from Jeremiah 29;
“To each of us, God has promised a plan for our lives to bless us and give us hope and a future.”
God holds the blueprint for our lives (thank goodness He does, because I know if I was in charge of my life, I would mess up the plans!), but it can sometimes seem like a challenge to discover what purpose God has given us on this earth. With choices surrounding careers, what subjects to study, dreams or hopes we have for the future, discovering our God-given purpose amongst all of these decisions can take many prayers, conversations, and lots of soul-searching.
Over my years of studying/university/church ministry/employment and relationship with God, He has shown me incredible revelations about purpose that I want to share with you.
God has all given us a purpose
From the moment you accepted Jesus into your heart, He gave you a purpose now that you’re a part of His kingdom. It’s the same mission He gave to His disciples before He was to be crucified, and can be found in Matthew 28:19-20;
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Just as we have heard the Good News of Jesus, it’s now our turn to tell people of this great love and hope we’ve found through Him.
He’s also given us a unique purpose
As well as Jesus giving all of us a purpose as His followers, God has created each of us as unique individuals, with hand-picked personality traits, strengths, talents and gifts. But these have not been created in us for us to show off, they’ve been created in us for, you guessed it, a purpose. In 1 Peter 4, we are encouraged as Christians to “use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms” (v.10). I think what’s significant in this scripture is the last few words “in its various forms”. God acknowledges that He has created our talents in various forms, but as equal. So no matter what the world defines as a talent, whatever gifts God has created within you are amazing, useful and a blessing waiting to be used!
Our purpose can change!
The purpose God gives us at a time in our lives isn’t necessarily the one we’ll keep doing for the rest of our lives. I thought that I would be a youth worker for years to come, but that wasn’t God’s plan, He had a new purpose for me after a few years. David is an example of purpose changing over time; in 1 Samuel 16, he is just a shepherd boy who goes from being the youngest in his family, to being dubbed as the next king. A massive change in his life and purpose! But it is many years later that David actually becomes king, in the meantime he’s fighting off giants and making lasting friendships with Jonathan.
There’s so much meaning and truth within the scripture in Ecclesiastes 3: “There is a time for everything, there is a time for every activity under the heavens.” It’s up to us to keep in sync with God to know what season (or purpose) He is calling us into.
Everyday is a purpose-filled day
Sometimes it may feel like we are waiting for God to bring us into His purpose for our lives; waiting to finish university so we can start our purpose in a new job, for example. Like I mentioned before, sometimes God does bring us into new seasons of renewed purpose, but also, everyday is a day to live in the purpose He has given us.
God has an agenda for each day of our lives, and all we have to do to tap into that, and find out our mission for today. There are people waiting to have a conversation with you, people waiting to be blessed, emails that need to answered, environments that need to be cleaned up, shops that need to be kept running smoothly, prayers that need to be lifted up to God.
Whatever your purpose is from God, today, tomorrow or in the next decade, live in what God has purposed you to do!
