Response to oGcjm

Thanks for your question:

“My question is why does no one have any answers for me? No one can tell us why we are here right? We need to figure it out ourselves. But some of us are not equipped to find the answers. Life becomes one long drawn out exercise in futility. Why doesn’t God just tell us what he wants from us? He apparently has our lives mapped out. So why won’t He share it with us”?

I get asked this all the time and I’m happy to give you a brief answer. First of all, it’s not a complicated as most people think since our main purpose is to Let Our Light Shine and glorify God. To glorify simply means to reflect Him – just like the moon – which has no intense light, reflects the sun to the dark side of earth. We are to get to know God and apply God’s daily power and wisdom to reflect him to our circle of influence. Consider the people you touch every day. You express the hand of God and the words of God to them. That’s the only reason we are here. Now, I know your question is about you personally, and I’ll get to that in a minute, but first you need to understand that in the big picture, God does not care where you decide to work or live or what hobbies you have. What God does care about, is how you represent Him to others in your work, neighbourhood, etc. I spoke about this in church Sunday morning and I’d be happy to mail you a tape of my sermon.

Keeping the foregoing in mind, we should all be seeking to discover our motivational gift(s). When we were conceived, our creator not only gave to us the gift of life, but He also implanted in our souls a unique personal gift. That gift is special because it lies at the very heart of our identity. It is what motivates us to think and act the way we do. It has influenced our temperament, personality, choice of vocation and hobbies, and it has even predetermined what will fulfill us. (As parents, it is important that we recognize these gifts early in our children and train them to use them.) My book Life Purpose explains these gifts and teaches you how to, not only discover your gifts (as well as talents and skills), but use them too.

For example, maybe your motivational gift is that of teaching. At work or at home, you would use this gift to teach others, whether it’s how to do something easier at work, or helping the fatherless kid next door by teaching him to build a bird house, etc. Once you discover your gifts you can use them for your main purpose – drawing people to Christ.

Many people ask me why God doesn’t just give us a road map or a booklet telling us where to go and what to do every day. The reason is, that if He did that, we would not be dependent on Him. We are to listen and hear His voice, allowing Him to direct our paths. Some people don’t know how to read road maps and would end up in Spuzzum instead of Sumas anyway. Or they would put the ink cartridges in backwards and wreck their printers – even with instructions. Even Jesus did not make any decisions or comments without first hearing from the Father (consider John 5:19 & 30) . The bottom line of the Christian life is that we “live by faith”. If we knew what every day was about, we’d not have to have any faith. Faith keeps us dependent on God.

In one of my earlier posts, I talked about the kids in my Life Purpose class doing the jigsaw puzzle. God gives us one piece at a time. Discovering God’s purpose is a life long project. We may never find out until we get to heaven what the bigger picture was.

There is one thing that can keep us from our purpose in life, and that is sin. We can’t draw others to the Lord if we are rooted in anger, fear, insecurities, shyness etc. These keep us from the right path. They keep us from hearing God’s voice. We have to deal with sin in our life like weeds in a garden, before we can be fruitful.

So, oGcjm, no matter where you work or live, ultimately our purpose is to direct others to the Lord using our motivational gifts. Whether serving in the military or a Wal-Mart greeter, we all have an important purpose to fulfill.

See? That’s not so complicated, is it? Let me know if you have more questions.

Barry