Growing Towards Purpose

In thinking about God’s blue print or design for our lives, we don’t always see the great purpose that God has for us as we continue to follow His leading. As our purpose begins to unfold, one of the principles that I outlined in the last blog was how important it is to have a solid foundation.   Just as a foundation is critical to building a house that will endure, in spiritual terms, we also need a strong foundation on which to anchor our lives.  In Rick Warrens book, Purpose Driven Life, he talks about how we were created for a purpose. He says “There is an alternative to speculation about the meaning and purpose of life.  It’s revelation.  We can turn to what God has revealed about life in His word. The easiest way to discover the purpose of an invention to ask the creator of it.  The same is true for discovering your life’s purpose: Ask God”.

Living as a faith filled person involves staying connected in a personal way to a living and loving God, who wants to bless our lives in amazing ways.  As a Christian therapist, I’m always working on helping myself and others integrate their faith into practical and successful living.  This does not happen without developing and going through both the joys and trials of life.  Life always involves process.    A good online dictionary definition of process is a systematic series of actions directed to some end.  We all desire to be directed to some end; having better relationships, improving our finances,  developing a more successful and effective career, enjoying a better marriage with our spouse and having more effective relationships with our children.  Process is not easy as most people including myself would like to skip some of the process and jump to the desired final outcome. Without the process, however, there would be no successful outcome or growth that ultimately results in a beautiful design.

Process can be painful because it takes some emotional work on our part to look inside of ourselves to work through our own fears or past failures so that we can get a clean slate and have the courage to start again.  The great good news is that God is always working in our lives to help us through the process if we are willing to take action steps that will lead us towards great purpose!