As a preacher and writer, I am always looking and listening for fresh ideas to write and preach about. Sometimes, these ideas come from strange places or at unexpected times. The following incident got me to thinking about God’s purpose for our life or the divine purpose for our life.
It was six months before I planned to retire from the engineering profession, and I was in the restroom at work. I heard two of my colleagues talking. One of them would be retiring in three months. He commented about the need to find something to do with his time after he retired. The other person responded that he was glad he was not retiring yet. He said the thought of having nothing to do would terrify him.
As I listened to them, I thanked God in my heart. Although I was going to be retiring in six months, I knew I would have no lack of relevant things to do with my time. In fact, I told my colleagues I was not retiring really. I was just going from working two full-time jobs to working one.
I looked forward to doing full-time ministry work without having to work another job. I thanked God that I was being blessed with the opportunity to fully live out the divine purpose for my life.
The Importance of Purpose in Life
Until a couple of years before my scheduled retirement date, I seldom thought about the importance of having purpose in life. All the people who started working for the company the same time I did were eligible for retirement the same time I was. And a number of them did just that.
I spoke with several of them. They expressed concern about the challenge of having lots of time on their hands. But that was never a problem in my life and would not be in the future either.
Clearly, to have purpose in life is important. The point I want to emphasize in this post is that God has a purpose for all of us. He has “saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity” (2 Tim. 1:9, NASB).
Seeking to Find Your Divine Purpose
It is incumbent upon each of us to seek until we find the divine purpose for our life. Finding it should be important to us because it is God’s plan for our life. Oftentimes, one of the hints for discovering our divine purpose is our innate abilities. That’s because God is always faithful to bless us with the means for living out His will.
Working on a job for 30 or 40 years is commendable. But God’s purpose for our life goes beyond that. He will communicate His will to us if we seek Him. He knows how to do that in a way that we will understand what it is.
I don’t know what God’s plan is for your life. But I know He has a plan for you. According to the verse above, He had a plan for your life before you were born. He wants to fulfill that divine purpose in you. Let us look beyond the temporal things so that we might know our higher calling. Based on my experience, nothing is more fulfilling than knowing that you are living out God’s purpose for your life.
Copyright © 2022 by Frank King. All rights reserved.