Living a life of purpose

There has to be a reason Rick Warren’s book The Purpose-Driven Life has sold 30 million copies. We are a society hungry for direction. We seem a bit lost when it comes to figuring out which way to point our compass. Warren asks the challenging question, “What on earth are we here for?”

Men and women are hardwired by God to have a purpose but we get distracted by the world and thus lose our way. Helen Keller said it best, “Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” As Robert Byrne wrote, “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”

And that purpose—the kind of purpose that actually changes lives—reaches outside the self. It goes beyond ME. Look at Proverbs 19:21: “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails” (NIV). We’re always striving for some purpose. In the end, however, it’s God’s purposes that prevail. And it’s a good thing too.

It’s the same question everybody asks at some point. Thankfully, he offers an answer. “You were made for a mission,” according to one of his chapter titles. You aren’t here just to wander around lost. And you aren’t here simply to live for yourself.

I love the way Eugene Peterson paraphrased Proverbs 11:28 in The Message: “A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump; a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree.” Warren is fond of saying, “Between this day and the next you will give your life to something. The decision on what that will be will shape your destiny.”