It’s not about you.
The purpose of your life is far greater than
your own personal fulfillment, your peace of
mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater
than your family, your career, or even your
wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to
know why you were placed on this planet, you
must begin with God. You were born by his
purpose and for his purpose.
The search for the purpose of life has puzzled
people for thousands of years. That’s because
we typically begin at the wrong starting point—
ourselves. We ask self-centered questions like,
“What do I want to be? What should I do with
my life? What are my goals, my ambitions, my
dreams for my future?”
But focusing on ourselves will never reveal
our life’s purpose. The Bible says, “It is God
who directs the lives of his creatures; everyone’s
life is in his power.”
Contrary to what many popular books,
movies, and seminars tell you, you won’t discover
your life’s meaning by looking within
yourself. You’ve probably tried that already.
You didn’t create yourself, so there is no way
you can tell yourself what you were created for!
If I handed you an invention you had never
seen before, you wouldn’t know its purpose,and the invention itself wouldn’t be able to tell
you either. Only the creator or the owner’s
manual could reveal its purpose.
I once got lost in the mountains. When I
stopped to ask for directions to the campsite,
I was told, “You can’t get there from here. You
must start from the other side of the mountain!”
In the same way, you cannot arrive at
your life’s purpose by starting with a focus on
yourself. You must begin with God, your
Creator. You exist only because God wills that
you exist. You were made by God and for
God—and until you understand that, life will
never make sense. It is only in God that we
discover our origin, our identity, our meaning,
our purpose, our significance, and our
destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end.
Many people try to use God for their own
self-actualization. They want God to be a personal
“genie” who serves their self-centered
desires. But that is a reversal of nature and is
doomed to failure. You were made for God, not
vice versa, and life is about letting God use
you for his purposes, not your using him for
your own purposes. The Bible says, “Obsession
with self in these matters is a dead end; attention
to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious,
free life.”
I’ve read many books that suggest ways to
discover the purpose of my life. All of them
could be classified as “self-help” ebooks because they approach the subject from a self-centered
viewpoint. Self-help books usually offer the
same predictable steps to finding your life’s
purpose: Consider your dreams. Figure out
what you are good at. Clarify your values. Set
some goals. Aim high. Believe you can achieve
it. Be disciplined. Never give up.
Of course, these recommendations are all
good and often lead to great success. You can
usually succeed in reaching a goal if you put
your mind to it. But being successful and
fulfilling your life’s purpose are not at all the
same issue! You could reach all your personal
goals, becoming a raving success by the world’s
standard, and still miss the purposes for which
God created you. You need more than self-help
advice. Jesus Christ once said, “Self-help is no
help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to
finding yourself, your true self.”
This booklet is not about finding the right
career, achieving your dreams, or planning
your life. It is not about how to cram more
activities into an overloaded schedule. Actually,
knowing your purpose will allow you to do less
in life—by focusing on what matters most. It
is about becoming what God created you to be.
How, then, do you discover the purpose
you were created for? You have only two
options. Your first option is speculation. This
is where most people are. They just guess or
speculate or theorize about the purpose of life. When someone says, “I’ve always thought the
purpose of life is . . . ,” they’re really saying,
“This is the best guess I can come up with.”
For thousands of years brilliant philosophers
have discussed and speculated about the meaning
of life. Philosophy is an important subject
and has its uses, but when it comes to determining
the purpose of life, even the wisest
philosophers are just guessing.
Dr. Hugh Moorhead, a philosophy professor
at Northeastern Illinois University
to 250 of the best-known philosophers, scientists,
writers, and intellectuals in the world and
asked each person “What is the meaning of life?”
He then published their responses—which were
quite discouraging—in a book. Some of these
famous thinkers offered their best guesses, some
admitted that they just made up a purpose for
life, and others were honest enough to say they
were clueless. In fact, a number of these intellectuals
asked Professor Moorhead to write back
and tell them if he discovered the purpose of
life!
Fortunately, there is a better alternative to
speculation about the meaning and purpose of
life. The easiest way to discover the purpose
of an invention is to ask the creator to explain
it. The same method works for discovering your
life’s purpose. You can find what God, your
creator, has revealed about life in his Word, the
Bible. Revelation beats speculation any day.
God has not left us in the dark to wonder
and guess. He has clearly revealed his five
purposes for our lives through the Bible. It is
our Owner’s Manual, explaining why we are
alive, how life works, what to avoid, and what
to expect in the future. It explains what no selfhelp
or philosophy book could know. “God’s
wisdom . . . goes deep into the interior of his
purposes. . . . It’s not the latest message, but more
like the oldest—what God determined as the way
to bring out his best in us.”
God is not just the starting point of your life;
he is the source of it. To discover your purpose
in life you must turn to God’s Word, not the
world’s best guesses. You must build your life
on unchanging, eternal truths, not the everchanging
opinions of talk shows, pop psychology
fads, or success-motivation seminars. The
Bible says, “It’s in Christ that we find out who we
are and what we are living for. Long before we
first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had
his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living,
part of the overall purpose he is working out in
everything and everyone.” This verse gives us
three insights into your purpose.
First, you discover your identity and
purpose through a relationship with
Jesus Christ. If you don’t have such a
relationship, I’ll explain later how you
can begin one.
Second, God was thinking of you long
before you ever thought about him.
His purpose for your life predates your
conception. He planned it before you existed,
without your input! You may
choose your career, your spouse, your
hobbies, and many other parts of your
life, but you don’t get to choose your
purpose.
Third, the purpose of your life fits
into a much larger, cosmic purpose
that God has designed for eternity.
That’s what this booklet is about.
Andrei Bitov, a Russian novelist, grew up
under a government that denied the existence
of God. But God got his attention one dreary
day. He recalls, “In my twenty-seventh year,
while riding the metro in Leningrad
great that life seemed to stop at once,
preempting the future entirely, let alone any
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