God's Work in Progress (TM) -The Proof is in the Purpose

Purpose as I define it is the foundational driving force in your life, which comes out of you.  It is already there. It is not external like a call or a mission or vision, and is placed in everyone by God. It drives your lives it is the fuel in your person’s engine. Want Proof?

Jesus’ purpose-  to seek and save the lost. 

If you unpack “save” you will see lots of sub-goals and visions and such. And this purpose drove his time on Earth and and continues to drive it even now.

Satan’s purpose- to steal kill and destroy.  Don’t have to unpack this.

Here’s a flash-  Satan and his helpers have been working full time making sure that people do NOT find their Life’s Purpose.  Believe me he knows what the world would be like if we all knew and lived God’s Purpose for our lives and it scares him to death.  His primary focus has been to prevent this from happening.

I have observed a lot of books and seminars that have the intent of helping people find their life’s purpose.  I think this is great.  I also think it is very important that we define what we mean by purpose.  Most of the reading equates purpose with calling. I believe strongly that this is a mistake.  Calling is not a life’s work.  One can be called for a given work, such as writing a book or starting a church or going on a mission field, or starting a company and then that calling changes.  This happens a lot and sometimes these callings take a lifetime.   Sometimes callings take a lifetime and they should not.   Many callings are interim challenges  God gives us which have an end point.    But your Life’s Purpose does not change if it is a LIFE’S purpose.  Right?   So if a calling can end or change, then a calling can’t be our purpose. Callings are more like a goal or a vision or mission.  It can last a lifetime but sometimes is does not.  So I think a calling a vocation, is very important but I believe a calling is an EXPRESSION of purpose, not our purpose. 

Another common teaching is that our Spiritual Gifts determine our Life’s Purpose or that BOTH calling and gifts together determine it. This  I believe is also not accurate.  Alongside the above idea of calling is the distribution of gifting by the Holy Spirit.  Gifts, are not us, they are God IN us.  They exist for the “building up of the Body”- They are extremely important in God’s plan for the world and have a role to play in our Life’s Purpose but they are not our purpose in my view. Gifts are a tool box to be used to advance God’s purpose,  which is -to seek and save the lost- so that we might KNOW him– and come to a knowledge of the truth— and as such they have a big role to play in our Life’s Purpose advances God’s plan for the world and our lives, but they are NOT our purpose.

Which brings us to purpose-

Our Life’s Purpose is our Life’s Work-  it is, in its essence, an intense focus of how we are supposed to live our lives day to day-  it is clarity,  an application of our lives that makes us extremely effective, it is the source of provision and when we devote it BACK to God, it also makes us very effective co-laborers with Christ in saving the world.

I have helped a hundred or so people to find their purpose and almost every single time they cry.  And the people whom I know, including myself, who have discovered their life’s purpose, live a very focused, driven life.  Not a life of compulsion, but a life that has very specific direction and guidance.  When you discover your life’s purpose your life changes permanently because purpose is the narrow path. It is an unlimited limited way, the most excellent way, and it is the way beyond all the other ways.

Here is the substance of your Life’s Purpose or Work, which is the foundation and focus of our lives.

Core Competence-  In each of us there is a foundational skill or ability that is at the ROOT of every other skill we have.  It is something that is so natural, so common to us, that most people don’t see it. It is in use all the time and you don’t even think about doing it because is is so natural.  The people around you know it, ask them. 

Core Passion- There is, residing in EVERY person’s heart an eternal care or concern that is primal and that when it is met, all seems right with the world.  It is a care or concern that when it is being addressed time seems to stop, or your sense of it diminishes. It is something you are always thinking about and winds its way into your thinking and reading and conversations in a default way.  It is a foundational concern that God has placed on your heart.  If you have “many” of them there is something, some primal concern that links them all together. This is your CORE passion.

Your Life’s Work, your Life’s Purpose is “discovered” not created. It already exists.  And here is how you discover it:

You apply your Core Competence (the natural foundational ability you are naturally great at), to your Core Passion (your external foundational concern for the world around you.) 

When you apply your core competence to that core passion concern that is fundamental in your heart you stop “working”.  You have found your Life’s Work, and this work is your primary work and all “works that have been prepared in advance” for you to do, come out of this Life’s Work.

Think about your life for a minute-  Think about the times when you were most effective-when you firing on all cylinders.  That was a time when this very purpose was happening. God reveals these moments to show it to you. 

Now when you discover your purpose you can live more intentionally, and you can make decisions on purpose, and you should.  Your purpose gives you permission to say yes to work that aligns with it, and no to work that does not. In fact you almost have an obligation NOT to do work that conflicts with your purpose.  When you are doing work that aligns with your purpose what  you do is more meaningful,  and you have JOY.

Here’s a plan.  Get on your knees and thank God for your purpose.  Devote it to Him, dedicate it to him.  Ask him to release the work that He has prepared in advance, ask him to show you the Plans He has for you to prosper you and give you a future and a hope.  And He will.

Send me an e-mail and I will send you tool I’m working on to help you discover it. Up to this point all my work has been one on one or in a seminar I lead.  Your feedback on the tool will help.