Purpose

Purpose

The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.

I WAS DISCOURAGED. My parents had asked me to vacuum my bedroom, but when I proudly displayed the finished floor, the smile tugging at the side of my mom’s mouth clued me in to the fact that something was off. Surveying the scrupulously neat lines crisscrossing the emerald green carpet, I couldn’t understand what had gone wrong.

“That was a great start,” she said tactfully. “But you need to make sure that the vacuum picks up all the dirt on the floor.”

Looking closer, I saw what she meant. Dust bunnies peeked from under the edges of my bed, and I could see unidentifiable specks on the floor and along the edges of my sunflower-themed room.

“Ohhhh,” I said. “So, not like a lawn mower.” She shook her head no. Plugging the vacuum back in, I started over, concentrating less on creating perfect lines and more on making sure the floor came clean. My mistake—understandable for a ten-year-old—was in misunderstanding the vacuum’s purpose. It wasn’t meant to simply make the room look pretty; it was meant for practicality.

A recent study concluded that having a sense of purpose in life is associated with a lower risk of death. But what constitutes a purpose? Stanford psychologists William Damon, Jenni Menon, and Kendall Cotton Bronk define it as “a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at once meaningful to the self and of consequence to the world beyond the self.”^a

Yet in the same way that Moses once told God he didn’t have the leadership skills to liberate the Israelites from Egypt’s oppression, many of us struggle to identify our purpose. Perhaps we tell ourselves we aren’t smart enough, good-looking enough, or educated enough to help further God’s Kingdom. But God’s plan is simple: he asks us to love him and to love our neighbors. Apart from that, there is freedom in how we accomplish those goals. Each of us has our own part to play, which God has equipped us to accomplish (see Hebrews 13:21).

Lord, thank you that you have a plan and purpose for each of us. Help give us your confidence in accomplishing your work. Amen.

-Kristin

One Good Step: What is your purpose? If you don’t have a ready answer, try reframing the question this way: What can I do with my time that is important?