Wellbeing: An Invitation to a Flourishing LifeSample

Finding Your Purpose

We’ve covered so many areas of well-being. We’ve covered physical, emotional, spiritual, relational, and financial well-being. You may be wondering if there’s anything left! Well, there’s one more key area of well-being to talk about: vocational well-being. Our lives become dry, dull, and boring without a sense of purpose. We’ll quickly fall into bad habits to distract ourselves from our sense of meaninglessness which will soon undo any growth in our other areas of well-being. It is human nature to need to feel like our lives have a purpose because God has placed us on this Earth for a purpose.

Like so many bad cliches, I know many people of this generation who’ve travelled the world to find their purpose or, to make it truly cringeworthy, to “find themselves”. Our culture assumes that, if we gain sufficient perspective or dig deep enough within ourselves and our desires, we will find our purpose.

This is not where the apostle Paul found his purpose. In his letter to the Philippians, he writes, “I want to know Christ - yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings… not that I have already obtained all this, or that I have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”

Paul says that our purpose comes when Christ takes hold of us, and Christ certainly took hold of Him. It is harder to find anyone who has lived a life of purpose like Paul. He travelled the world and endured every kind of suffering because he single-mindedly pursued the passion that Christ had laid in his heart.

A life of purpose comes when we allow Christ to take hold of us. When we draw into Him, we find that He stirs something within us that compels us to strive towards everything He has called us into.

Thought Point: Has Christ taken hold of you? Have you given Him the space and time it takes for Him to do that?

Prayer Point: In your prayer time today, lean into God’s presence, and meditate on everything He is. Invite the Spirit to ignite within you a passion for His mission.