What Is The Purpose Of Life

I have often spent a lot of time trying to figure out what my purpose is in life. I have spent hours in prayer begging God to show me why I am here, and what I am supposed to do. The will of God often feels like a mystery, especially when I am unable, or unwilling, to hear or accept it.

There were times when I had glimpses of it. There were times when I thought I knew what it was, or when I thought I saw it clearly, but those moments were usually short-lived, or simply my own imaginings and desires.

Yet, God’s will was always right in front of me, and I never fully grasped it. It was too obvious to be seen. It was too ever-present to be noticed. It is like air -- the only time I seem to notice it is when I am without it. When all is going well, and I am breathing normally, and there is plenty of air available to me, I am unaware of air, even thought it is ever-present and necessary.

Sunlight is invisible -- we do not see it; yet, we know sunlight exists. We think we know what light is because we experience it, but the truth is that is when we do not experience it that allows us to know when we are experiencing it. If it were always light -- if there were all day and no night -- we would not know what sunlight is. It would always be there and we would just take it for granted as we do air. For thousands of years people just breathed without knowing anything about air, or oxygen, or the atmosphere. We would live forever without knowing what light is, if all were light all the time. But because there are periods when there is no light -- night -- we know what light is. Because there are periods of darkness, when light is blocked or obscured, we know what light is.

God is light and in Him there is no darkness (1 John 1:5). This is not a scientific statement, but a poetic one -- it is a metaphor, but it is a metaphor that explains why God is so hard to see. I only know what light is because I have experienced periods without light -- if there were no darkness, light would just be, and I would simply not notice it. The problems is, I can know light because I have experienced darkness, but there is no place or no time when God is not present -- God is not eclipsed or obscured. God may not be invisible, but so ever-presently visible that I just do not notice God. If God is ever eclipsed, it is because I have put something between me and God, but even then, God is never fully eclipsed or obscured to the point that there is no God present and I am in darkness. It may feel like darkness because it seems a little dimmer, BUT DIM IS NOT DARK!

The only place where there would be darkness would be hell. Hell, to be hell, must be an absence of God. Anywhere God is, is by definition, heaven. So even though there may occasions or conditions or places on earth where the full light of God is diminished, it can never be extinguished or fully blocked. Darkness cannot destroy light; darkness is destroyed by light! So forces of darkness can try to obscure and eclipse God’s light, but they cannot extinguish it or completely block it. So however this world may feel like hell at times, it is far from it. If there is a place called hell, there are tastes of it here on earth, but all the misery, suffering, and pain of this world, as horrifying as it may be, would pale when compared to the complete absence of God.

Ironically, since the only way I could see God clearly is to experience a time when God is not present, then the people who are in hell see God clearer than those of us who are not in hell ever can. The people in hell know that absence of God, so when they see God, the see God clearly, just as we see light clearly, and nobody has to tell us where and what light is, we know it when we see it.

So my purpose in life -- God’s will for me and my life -- can be hard to see because, like God, it is ever before me, so present that I do not notice it. I can often only glimpse it when it seems to dim or is blocked by something I place between it and myself. But it is there. It is so clear and so simple I do not see it. It shouts at me from the pages of the Bible, yet I do not hear it. It is played out before me in the world, but I miss it because it is either so obvious, or I am too distracted.

THE PURPOSE OF MY LIFE IS TO LOVE, AND ALLOW MYSELF TO BE LOVED.

It is that simple! It is that obvious! It is that easy to miss!

Unfortunately, though, I may not know what love is, so I my not know how to love, or let myself be loved. The darkness rule may apply here. I may not know what love is, but I know what love is not; therefore, if I can identify what love is not, then I can begin to see and grasp what love is.

So, if my purpose is to love, and to allow myself to be loved, then the questions that arise are: “How do I love?” and “Whom do I love?” The how, is H.O.W. (Honest, Open-Minded, and Willing), and the whom is whomever is in front of me at any given moment. How do I love? I am honest in all of my dealings with others, I am open-minded with others and do not judge them, and I am willing to do for them what I want for myself.

I also know how to love because the Bible tells me what love looks like over and over again. Jesus says that love looks like giving without expecting anything in return. It is giving to those who can never pay you back or return the favor. Love is wanting for others what I want for myself. Love is giving people what they need. Love is forgiving people when they wrong you, hurt you, pick on you, or anything else, as often as they do it. Saint Paul famously tells us that love is patient, kind, does not keep track of wrongs, is never arrogant, rude, or self-inflating.

But that is just the “to love” part. What about the “be loved” part? Sometimes the most loving things I can do is to let myself be loved. If I am to be honest with others, then I am honest about myself, what I may be feeling, what I may be experiencing. If I am open-minded with others, then I am open-minded enough to accept that I do not have all the answers, and that maybe someone else has experience, strength and hope that can help or sustain me. If I am willing to help people get what they need, I can accept that what they need may be to help me get what I need -- because the old song that says “You’re nobody til somebody loves you” is wrong; I am nobody until I love somebody -- and the way I may love somebody is by letting them love me!

Whom do I love? Whomever God has put in front of me, regardless of whether I want to love that person or not! This means the guy who cut me off on the highway. This means the jerk in the check out line. This means the unhelpful and frustrating person on the tech-support line. This means everybody I meet and encounter and see on any given day. More than all of these, this means my family, my friends, and the people God has placed in my life as the main characters of the story that is me.

This is my purpose. This is why God put me here -- to love and to be loved. That is all there is! I am always a success if I can love. I am only a failure when I fail to love. This is my purpose and I only fail when I sacrifice what I want for my life with what I want for the moment.

Initially I may only love because I am commanded to do so -- I want it because God wants it for me. But if I practice love, sooner or later, I know longer do it because I am commanded, or even because it is what God wants for me, but because it is who I am.

God is love; and I am in God; therefore, I am in love -- and that love is me. My purpose is to let it out.