The purpose of life is not to be happy.
The purpose of life is to mature and gain wisdom in order to make decisions that will
leave a positive impact on the world.
What Is Purpose?
“Purpose”…. Purpose is the reason for which something is done or created. Better yet, the reason for which something exists.
Why do you exist? What’s the reason you are even here? Is there a reason? Or is everything just a series of events, all leading nowhere, for no particular reason and therefore nothing really matters? I truly believe, if a person spent any significant amount of time and energy thinking about these questions, somewhere deep down they would come to the conclusion that life isn’t all meaningless. This world was created for people and people were created for a reason. There is a purpose to life.
Life Has Meaning. People Matter.
If this life was all meaningless, then people’s lives would also be meaningless. However, innately we all know that people matter. Actually, people matter more than anything else in this world. If people didn’t matter, then we wouldn’t care when people died. We would feel completely indifferent about treating people badly or about injustices in the world. Whether child or adult, it wouldn’t matter what happened to someone because nothing in life would matter anyways, right? You see how quickly that type of perspective would spiral into chaos?
The fact of the matter is, what people do actually matters quite a lot. One person’s decisions and actions can affect other people’s lives in many different ways, potentially for many years afterwards or can even change the trajectory of human history for the rest of time. People’s actions can change how another person sees themself, what another person thinks about the world, or how another person decides to live their life. This all makes a difference and affects the next person. All of this makes a difference because our lives are all interconnected and are leading somewhere. THERE ARE ultimate consequences for our actions and lifestyles.
Seeing that life does have meaning and purpose, now let’s discuss….
THE PURPOSE OF LIFE
*There are two types of purpose*
Your Life’s Main Purpose
First and most importantly, every person ever created has the same overarching purpose. Your main purpose is to reflect the image of your creator, the creator of all things; GOD.
Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…”
Our general purpose as human beings is to know God and experience His love for us. Therefore, we may come to know our true identity through what God says about who we are. Understanding His immense love for us is what makes us want to love God back by spreading His message of love to the rest of the world.
1 John 4:8: “The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.“
The world needs love. Every human being on earth is seeking to receive love and acceptance in one way or another. By receiving God’s love, which is truly unconditional, we can heal from anything that we’ve been through and consequently are filled with so much love that we can’t help but give love away to other people. If only everyone would choose to experience this, how beautiful of a world would we live in.
Your Life’s Unique Purpose
Second, every human being has a unique purpose. This is why every individual is unique. This is why you are you. It’s why you have your unique qwerks, interests, likes, dislikes, obstacles, life challenges, upbringing, innate strengths and weaknesses, etc. Your unique life path has been pointing you towards your unique purpose in life for your entire life. Your unique purpose is something no other person can fulfill besides you. Just like your DNA will never be replicated, your fingerprint will never be replicated…likewise, your unique purpose could never be replicated by anyone else in all of human history. Someone else may be able to perform the same tasks as you but they will never be able to do it the way you specifically would. This is what makes each individual unique.
Why Can’t I Find My Life Purpose?
The reason people never figure out their purpose is because they don’t know how to look at their life from the right perspective. The right perspective is to view your life as something that has happened for you, not to you. Your life has undoubtedly presented challenges that were there to shape, mold and teach you certain lessons in life. We are supposed to overcome the obstacles in our lives and learn lessons from our experiences. Only by growing through these experiences does someone become capable of helping another person overcome similar challenges in their own life. Life isn’t fair and bad things happen to good and innocent people. However, with the help of God and others, people who’ve been wronged in life can heal and overcome their obstacles.
Life Isn’t About Being Happy, It’s About Fulfilling Your Purpose
God’s goal for humanity most definitely isn’t to constantly keep us happy by giving us everything we want at all times. God’s goal for humanity is to spur us onto maturity by teaching us through His word how to deal with life and its challenges. Through the reading and implementation of the words written in the bible, God instructs humans how to develop and grow from selfishness (immaturity) to selflessness (maturity). Unfortunately, the only way to grow is to face challenges in life.
The only thing that stops people from experiencing God is their own selfishness.
The only thing that stops people from thinking about others is thinking about themselves more.
Selfishness is the opposite of maturity.
Here’s proof…
Being married is hard. Why? You can’t be selfish. You have to continually think about and consider someone else other than yourself. Which produces maturity.
Raising children is a challenge. Why? You can’t be selfish. You have to continually think about and consider someone else other than yourself. Which produces maturity.
Imagine someone who has had everything handed to them in life on a silver platter. Most times, these people become the most unaware, entitled, selfish and emotionally immature people. Why? Because they never had to work for anything. They never experienced the challenges that would’ve developed their character. It’s a curse disguised as a blessing.
So when you have had to face challenges in life that caused you to develop your character and become less selfish, see it as a blessing disguised as a curse. This is how we can look at life from the right perspective to become empowered. Every challenge overcome only adds another skill to uour tool belt and what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.
James 1:2-3: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Conclusion
Life does have purpose. Therefore, there is such a thing as a life purpose and people do have individual purpose for their lives. First, it is to know and glorify God because every human was made to experience God and reflect His likeness to the rest of humanity. Second, it is to discover what makes you unique and operate in your unique giftedness to serve others. This is the thing that no other person who was ever created could accomplish the way you can, other than you.
Life is full of challenges and obstacles that are going to try to stop you from succeeding, but the right way to view these challenges is to look at how they have caused you to develop and what they helped you learn. You go through it to grow through it. This is in order to help others down the road with something you’ve already helped yourself with. This proves that life is not about being happy but about overcoming and progressing through challenges and helping others to do the same. This is when you have reached a place of true maturity (selflessness) in life… this is a life well-lived… this is fulfilling your life’s purpose!