Purpose

Jasmine Griffin - August 28, 2020

“I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills His purpose for me.” Psalm 57:2. If I asked you right now what your purpose in life is, would you be able to give a full-hearted answer? Not just what you think your purpose is, but what you know God’s purpose for your life is? As you ask yourself this, like me i’m sure many of you can honestly say you don’t know. As a teen involved in sports, friends, and hobbies I will be completely transparent and say that it’s not something that’s on my mind very much. I woke up one morning though, with that question on my heart. What is MY purpose? I had no answer, and it got me thinking... does God really have a purpose for everyone? We serve a God who cares about the small details. He has hand-crafted a purpose for each and every person. He KNOWS us, better than we know ourselves, but while all of this is great, the reality of finding his purpose for our lives is a bit more tricky.

        So the question of how to find God’s purpose for our lives will be answered now, but first we must discuss the things holding us back from discovering what God really has in store for each and every one of us. I am going to start with the most obvious reason and that would be sin. Sin is a great way to experience a sense of aimlessness. You can’t have purpose through God if you are blatantly disobeying Him. This is a pretty clear way not to find your purpose and sadly the most difficult one to change. Sin can become a pattern, a habit, and even an addiction. If we continue to let sin take over our lives our purpose will never be found. The next thing that keeps us from finding purpose is not having direction. When don’t have direction we tend to have no goals and we begin to wander without any progress or motivation. This can become a roadblock to finding our purpose. Going along without direction and goals often leads to a lack of joy and fulfillment. These two groups of things sort of come as a cause and effect. If you don’t have any direction or goals, then, what are you finding joy and fulfillment in and are you making progress?  Lastly, we feel stuck. We desperately want a change but we just get stuck in our lives bored by going through the motions of day to day life. This confirmation that you’re not walking according to God’s purpose for your life. These are just a few ways that christains struggle in finding their purpose.

        Now that we’ve covered what’s keeping us from finding our purpose, the how to find it must be tackled, and we must go straight to the source for answers. Ask him! God loves when we go to him in prayer. For Matthew 7:7 states “Ask, and it will be given to you: seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” This is great news! Our father wants to hear from us! As I said earlier God knows us SO well. He knows our strengths and he knows our weaknesses, but we must discover these for ourselves. God’s purpose for our lives will often include the strengths he has gifted us with.  Along with finding our strengths and weaknesses we must discover what we are passionate about. We can find our purpose in how He chooses to use our passions. Most importantly though, we must trust God and be patient. Continue seeking your purpose! He has timing for everything. He is all knowing and He knows when and how He will use us. Through all our confusion He has clarity. The answer to finding your purpose might not come right away. It takes prayer, and reading his word. Remember this soul truth. We all have a role and a purpose in God’s Kingdom. It can take time to figure out what that may be, but He has it all figured out. So trust Him!

About the Author

Jasmine Griffin (jasmingriffin1410@gmail.com) 

Ephrata High School Sophomore

Ephrata Grace Point COTN, Membership of Two Years

Plays Sports; Loves music, friends and Philly District NYI Events