Discovering God's Purpose

Finding God's purpose for your life! Do you ever feel as overwhelmed by this as me? I find myself constantly dissatisfied with what I'm doing. Okay - maybe not truly "dissatisfied" as much as "restless" about the purpose and direction God has for me. I think it has a lot to do with my impatience.

I find myself continually praying a prayer that goes a little something like this, "God, please show me the plan and purpose You have for my life. Reveal Your will to me. Show me the unique destiny You have created just for me."

But here is how I think it comes out (or at least how my heart is revealed through this petition), "God, please (pretty please) show me the plan and purpose you have for my life (as soon as possible). Reveal Your will to me (making it as comfortable as You can please). Show me the unique destiny you have created just for me (and if you can do this by next Monday, that would be just perfect)."

Does anyone else feel as though SOMETIMES this is how your prayers really sound like?

I have good intentions. I really do. I believe my motives are right. After all - the sooner the plan and purpose is revealed to me - the sooner I can get on with making a real difference in this world.

But... God is not interested in giving us what we want when we want it. I believe He's more interested in giving us what we need when we need it. In other words - in His timing.

Because I have become quite obsessed in recent years with discovering God's purpose for my life, I have purchased just about every book on the subject I can get my hands on. So much so that I've often chuckled upon checking out at the bookstore glancing across the book titles I have chosen... 'A Call To Die', 'Redefining My Identity', 'You', 'Its Not About Me', 'Gifted To Lead', 'My Destiny' and just about every book ever written by the great John Maxwell!

Honestly... I've become a regular self-help junkie who sincerely longs for the "Ah Ha!" moment to arrive.

Over the past few months I have been on a journey. Scratch that, a roller coaster really. A roller coaster of emotions. A roller coaster of dreams and desires. And I really feel like God is revealing some things to me. And I am SUPER excited about the direction He is leading. I really am. But we're not there yet... and so, my spirit is still... restless.

I picked up a short booklet the other day by Beth Moore entitled, "Discovering God's Purpose For Your Life" (well - of course I did!). The booklet is only 58 (short) pages long, but WOW - chock full of all sorts of wonderful nuggets of inspiration! The entire booklet is centered around one passage of scripture... Philippians 3:10 (Amplified)... "My determined purpose is that I may know Him, that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His person."

Here are some of my highlights from the book:

He is determined to purse you because He knows the greatest joy in your life will come from His plan for you.

You and I were created to be a people who seek purpose.

If you are to live out God's purpose for your life, you must come to a place where you determine a focus for your life.

Our determined purpose is to know God.

Giving your life to knowing Christ more intimately is worth it because of the wonders of His person. Sadly, we don't believe this because we have compared and measured Christ according to a human standard.

We will never to able to fulfill our purpose if we do not turn from our practices of sin.

We stay tucked in our offices, drive in and curse the traffic, get overwhelmed by the rush of life and never look up to behold the sunset before us and shout to God, "What glory! What a glory we behold!"

We can know who He is even when we don't have a clue what He's doing.

God is not going to forget our concerns. God knows what worries you. God knows what scares you nearly to death! God knows what's on your mind... let it be on His.

Beth also quotes George Bernard Shaw...

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one... the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."

WOW! That pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? Talk about IN your FACE!?

Beth suggests in this small little booklet that you begin to discover your purpose by being most concerned with KNOWING God. She even suggests that you consider thinking about your own book - of life. On the front of your book is a title and that title should be the same for all of us... "Knowing God". Then under the title would be a line that says, "by..." with your name name. Now.. every single chapter of that book should be focused on that ONE thing... Knowing God. Period.

She wraps it up by encouraging us to think about what our chapter right now would be called. Maybe it's.. 'Knowing God - Through the Storm'. Maybe it's... 'Knowing God - Through my Infertility'. Whatever it is - it HAS to begin with Knowing God.

What God really spoke to my heart as I read this booklet was that His timing is perfect - and I that I need to continue to seek to KNOW Him better. Perhaps God is not quite ready to use me for the purpose He's created me for, but it doesn't mean He's finished and it's certainly not time to give up on pursuing a deeper, richer and fuller relationship with Him.

I believe to be as effective as I can for the calling He's chosen for me, I have to commit to Knowing Him more. And by Knowing Him more, I will be closer to discovering the thing that He's created me to do for Him.

I believe you cannot begin to know the plan and purpose He has for you, until you are willing to get serious about Knowing Him more. I've determined that even though the intentions of desiring to know His plan and purpose may sound sincere, we can twist and turn it into something more selfish by demanding we know before it's our time to know.

I was just talking to someone today and I explained it this way, "I'm very impatient when it comes to knowing what God has in store for me. It's like I've started the bus and I'm outside of it screaming, 'Come on let's go, let's go!'. My intentions are good, my motives are right, but God's telling me to turn off the engine! It's not time yet." Just because I want to know (right now) doesn't mean I'm ready to know (quite yet).

But, in the meantime, I'm going to spend my time getting to Know God better!

I believe - the best is YET to COME!