I’m going to hear Os Guinness speak at a Porter’s Call event tomorrow morning at Fellowship, so I grabbed my copy of his book The Call from my shelf to remind myself of his thinking and writing style. This is from page one of chapter one:
As modern people we are all on a search for significance. We desire to make a difference. We long to leave a legacy. We yearn, as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “to leave the world a bit better.” Our passion is to know that we are fulfilling the purpose for which we are here on earth.
All other standards of success - wealth, power, position, knowledge, friendships - grow tinny and hollow if we do not satisfy this deeper longing. For some people the hollowness leads to what Henry Thoreau described “as lives of quiet desperation”; for others the emptiness and aimlessness deepen into a stronger despair. In an early draft of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, the Inquisitor gives a terrifying account of what happens to the human soul when it doubts its purpose: “For the secret of man’s being is not only to live…but to live for something definite. Without a firm notion of what he is living for, man will not accept life and will rather destroy himself than remain on earth…”
Call it the greatest good (summum bonum), the ultimate end, the meaning of life, or whatever you choose. But finding and fulfilling the purpose of our lives comes up in myriad ways and in all the seasons of our lives…
Os Guinness, The Call, pp. 1-2.
I’m immediately reminded of what the Psalmist says in Psalm 138:8: “The Lord will fulfill His purposes for me.” I agree that we are all on a quest for significance - to make a difference and to find our purpose. And when we can trust God and HIS purposes for our lives, we can find true biblical contentment no matter our circumstances. I certainly haven’t arrived yet. The journey has a lot of ups and downs…peaks and valleys. But I have found its easier to have peace in the journey as I trust God for His purpose for my life. When I push too hard with my own self-driven agenda, I spin my wheels. But finding and walking in HIS purposes means patience, perseverance, suffering, humility, steadiness, discipline, pain, time, trust, faith, trials, refining, testing, breaking, serving, dying, loving, giving…
How dark to walk in emptiness or aimlessness that leads to despair. I pray that I don’t get to that point - but if I do, to trust in God’s sovereignty and hope in His goodness and purpose.
I want to live for something definite. That something is God’s glory as revealed in human relationship, the Church, God’s Word, Jesus Christ, the Gospel, creation, truth, beauty, love, eternity… That’s my purpose. Right now it’s being fulfilled in the Church and in particular in Global Outreach, worship, equipping, etc. As long as lives are being challenged and changed, I feel I’m walking in God’s purpose.
Do you sense His purpose for your life? Are you doubting it? Are you questioning it? That’s perfectly normal and OK. Give it to Jesus and let Him carry it. He already knows anyway! The question we all need to ask ourselves is: “What do I need to do or change to know I’m walking in ‘the call’ on my life - God’s ultimate purpose for me?” If we are prayerfully dependent, God will make it known. Trust in Him. Stay saturated with His Word…
