How To Live a Purposeful Life
Living present over perfect with purpose
I braced my hands against the counter, making a scattered mess with the veggies I was chopping. I let them spill over the counter in front of me, leaning into the hot tears quickly falling down my cheeks and onto the tile floor. The emotions I felt were uncertain, but the built-up pressure needed a way out.
A question churned in my head the days leading up to this sobering breakdown, taking captive every space in my mind until it was all I could think about. Am I living a purposeful life?
The Calling to Live a Purposeful Life
Purpose is defined as “the reason for which something exists or is done.” As a Christian, I believe I was created with Christ’s intention to share His name until my voice runs out! So, I must ask myself what am I doing to fulfill my purpose or my reason for existing?
In comes my overwhelming emotions and a long list of to-dos that I hope will get me to Heaven. But my mind knows what my heart doesn’t about working to get to Heaven – it is only by God’s grace you get there. We must first recognize that grand gestures do not make our lives purposeful or get us into Heaven.
How to Take One Step Forward
We so often believe that to figure out our lives we need to do something big. Our eyes jump from the small step below us to the big staircase in front of us. I fear many of us think we need to make grand gestures as we watch others gracefully skip over the staircase and straight to the top. But we aren’t called to skip steps. We are called to take steps of faith as God guides us.
You don’t need to work to fulfill your purpose; you just need to act in faithful obedience. There are several people in the Bible who lived a purposeful life through their obedience.
- I think of David on the run from King Solomon as he penned out praises in the Psalms. He kept his mind on Jesus rather than on his situation.
- I think of Peter when he walked on water to meet Jesus. Every time his eyes wandered away from Jesus, he started to drown. He kept his eyes on Jesus to stay afloat.
- I think of Jesus when He was on the cross. He asked for the Father’s will to be done as He hung on the cross. He gave His heart to God, palms nailed to a cross and surrendered to His Father.
In a society where we feel the urgent pressure to work to get to the top, what if we lived with an urgency not to “do” but to just simply live for the cause of Christ?
Let’s not get too caught up in doing for Christ that we neglect to live for Christ.
When we decide to take one step at a time with our mind, eyes, and heart on Jesus, we are able to clearly see the hand of our Father guiding us into His anointed appointments.
It takes a simple act of faith to make a difference in one life. In a world of darkness where there are people dying to know the Gospel, we can focus on the ONE person placed in our lives. We will only reach the world with God’s goodness when we focus on ONE.
What a Small Act of Faith Can Do
To live a godly life is to live with plans surrendered. When our small acts of service feel unimportant, know you are changing lives with the way you live if you are a follower of God. God isn’t calling you to be perfect, He is just calling you to live present. I wrote about how to work through the need to have it all together in another post.
If you only reach the one kid you babysit or one of the 10 co-workers on your team with the Gospel, let it be done for the glory of God because you served the ONE.
RECAP:
How do we know we live purposefully?
- We know God.
- We walk with God – heart, eyes, and mind.
- We take one step at a time.
