How to Find Your God Given Purpose in Life

God Has Given You a Purpose in Life

A purpose that matters. One that leads you to walking in peace and in victory.

Today I have a special guest with us sharing Biblical truth and years of experience as a professional counselor. He gives us 3 critical steps to discovering our God given purpose in life. And then, he shares 5 ways our behaviors lead us away from our true purpose in life. A warm welcome to Matt Pavlik of New Reflections Counseling and ChristianConcepts.com!

How often do you see God working in your life?

Even when you can’t see clearly, God is always present and always working in your life. He surrounds you on all sides even in the darkest of places. You can’t escape God’s reach. His hand is on you; He is blessing your life (see Psalm 139:5–12).

Find Security in God

You’ve gone into my future to prepare the way,
and in kindness you follow behind me
to spare me from the harm of my past.
With your hand of love upon my life,
you impart a blessing to me.

—Psalm 139:5, The Passion Translation

(See support for  The Passion Translation here.)

God knows every day of your past and every day of your future. You don’t have to worry or force an outcome; you can trust God and relax.

God knows why He created you. He even scheduled every day of your life.

You saw who you created me to be before I became me!
Before I’d ever seen the light of day,
the number of days you planned for me
were already recorded in your book.

—Psalm 139:16, The Passion Translation

Any day spent living out your purpose is a day well spent.

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. —Mark Twain

Expanding on Twain’s idea, any day spent discovering more of all that God placed into you when He created you is an important day.

Confront Your Shame

Before you can live in freedom, you must confront distortions in your vision.

Shame is that scary moment when you are afflicted with tunnel vision and all you can see is your incompleteness. You feel inadequate. And, without God, you are incomplete. When you don’t widen your vision and see yourself as God sees you, you’ll become convinced you’re worthless or that no one in their right mind would want to know the real you.

In the absence of a sense of your true identity, you’ll take on a false identity.

You might think: I’m strong. I can handle this without God’s help. But in reality, you’re attempting to cover up your weakness.

You might think: Everybody likes me. I defer to what others want. I’m a great friend. But in reality, you don’t know who you are and you don’t have much to share. You serve because it’s the right thing to do instead of because serving flows out of who God made you to be.

Examine Your Activity

You can be moving so quickly through life that you no longer stop to evaluate how you’re doing.

Life has so many demands: work, parenting, chores. It’s easy to get lost in all the details. Little by little you find yourself miles from why you were born. But maybe you’re not moving away from God’s purposes. Maybe you’re realizing how far away you started and God is drawing you closer to Him. With God in your life, you’re moving in the right direction after all.

Distractions and disasters make it difficult to believe God is working for your good. When you encounter a tragedy, you experience first-hand a life without God. With this realization, appreciating God’s goodness comes easier. God is training you to walk in righteousness and reject evil.

Have you ever avoided bad news?

That toothache is probably a cavity, so you put off scheduling with the dentist.

That email is probably a rejection, so you don’t open it.

That friend is probably tired of your problems, so you avoid her at church.

Or maybe you’ve never known any real sense of your purpose. How can you tell you’re living away from the center of your purpose?

Here are five ways to tell if you are living away from the center of your purpose in life. You are:

1. Too Open

You are quick to say yes, to fill up your days. You serve because you were asked, based on need, not on fit or gifting. You’re helping because you’re needed. Some of your responsibilities don’t fit with who God made you to be.

2. Oblivious

You’ve been serving in the same area for a long time and out of touch with how you feel.

You’re a steady worker. You enjoy staying busy—maybe too much. God could be at your door, but you are deaf to His knocking.

3. Overdone

You’re tired of what you’ve been doing. You dread the simple tasks. You’re over-familiar with your work. You’re bored, disinterested, unmotivated. Passion and growth have become strangers to your way of life.

4. Obligated

Parenting is a 24/7 effort and pretty much the only one you can’t quit. But you are more than a parent. You need time away to pursue other aspects of God’s purpose.

5. Outmatched

With hard work, your results peak at ‘C’ level and cease at ‘B’ level. You can sense your best efforts produce results that have reached their limit. Others can perform the same tasks with better results or less effort.

Find Freedom

As you confront distortions in your vision, you can live in freedom. Freedom is that unbelievable moment when you realize you can stop being someone you’re not. You sense God revealing why he created you.

Take a look. Invite God to help you see (Psalm 139:23–24).

To fine tune this and discover who you really are can take years and even decades. God has a long-term plan. It’s okay if the results are taking time to develop.

The first 10 years of marriage could be like one long blind date as you get to know one another.

The first 10 years of a career could result in you figuring out you want to go back to school to pursue a different direction.

You might find a new passion after 20 years of being a parent.

You don’t have to force yourself to become someone else. Freedom means accepting yourself exactly as God made you.

Reflect:

Are you on this journey of self-discovery?

Are you accepting and settling into who you are?

How in touch are you with your incompleteness?

How are you doing with allowing God to complete you?

What level of freedom do you feel to be your real self?

And in all things and all situations, remember, God is always with you and He’s pointing you in the right direction.

Matt Pavlik writes about identity and emotional healing at his blog, ChristianConcepts.com. His books, To Identity and Beyond, Confident Identity, and Marriage from Roots to Fruits, contain practical exercises that help God’s truth spring to life. His readers develop the resilience needed to overcome life’s challenges. He administers God’s grace to individuals and couples as a professional counselor at his private practice, New Reflections Counseling. You can also connect with him on Pinterest and Twitter! 

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Have You Read Our Story of Surrender?

Through our adoption journey, God brilliantly showed us the power of living surrendered. We discovered the peace that comes when we walk in God’s will and trust wherever He takes us. Finding that doesn’t usually come along golden paved roads, though. It comes along the broken ones. But along those roads we discover our purpose in life – what God had in mind for us all along.

Purchase the Surrendered Hearts book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, ChristianBook.com, and Redemption Press.