A Purpose to Live For

Mark Twain once said that there are two important days in everyone’s life: the day we are born and the day we learn what for.

Purpose is extrinsic right until the point we discover what we are here for.

And the funny thing is we may feel we have discovered it, only to find – later – we missed the point.

What’s important is the passion with which we work, and the direction of those works. What point would there be in giving our lives to something harmful?

That’s the meaning of life: to find our purpose and let ourselves go into creativity.

As we stretch ourselves into the wider expanses of a world that continues to expand, we fill that space as much as it grows.

That’s when we know we have our purpose – or a purpose good enough to invest our lives in. When we are given to all sorts of exciting possibilities and there is only good to be done.

***

A purpose to live for brings us alive.

And maybe we don’t believe that could happen, because we’ve never experienced such a thing; we’ve only seen it happen to others, and, ironically, we were incredibly envious.

But it can happen if we continue to search the whole world for it. Now, that world begins within ourselves. Who are we, truly? Such a question can only be answered honestly if we are to gain traction on our purpose.

The inner world is where everything of satisfaction begins and has its meaning. But it’s the external world we need to bring closer in alignment with this inner world.

We need to place ourselves in our spaces of passion; those areas of activity that inspire motivation and creativity.

Where there is a spark of innovation – where we can’t get enough – that’s where we need to be. But it has to be productive, healthy, of benefit to others, as well as healing for ourselves.

This is where God comes in. The purposes of God that he predestined us to enter in on give us both things: 1) we come alive, and 2) we bless people.

Our passions are aligned with our gifts – the attributes of uniqueness that only God could give – those we develop in order to serve and bless those in his Kingdom.

A purpose to live for is what makes us live on purpose. It’s worth every sacrifice, because, under such circumstances, sacrifices turn quickly to joy.

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.