Purpose

Let’s talk about purpose.

Let’s talk about where we’re going.

Let’s talk about what to do tomorrow and the day after that.

Let’s talk about what will remain in my open hands when it’s time to go.

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Since coming to uni, I’ve met a lot of people and learnt a lot. Not necessarily academic things, but more so things about purpose and the way we live our lives. Because after all, isn’t uni simply a bridge of sorts between now and the future?

The things people want in life, the important things they uphold, the direction they’re going, the next thing they’re planning- it all comes to the forefront.

But if you really think of it, what are we doing here? You might go to school so you can go to uni so you can get a job so you can get money so you can buy food so you can eat and live. Maybe along the way you’ll meet someone so you can share the food and electricity bill with them.

Maybe you’ll have enough food and money and energy and libido to make miniature versions of yourself so you have more mouths to feed. Fun.

If you really think of it, living is just dying really slowly.

So what do we live for?

I guess it’s different for everyone. But the default answer always seems to be ‘happiness’ or ‘to be happy’ or something nonsensical like that. What makes you happy? When will you achieve it? Once you get it, will that be it? So you’ll be happy and never feel sad again?

Sometimes it looks like a ladder-

I’ll be happy once I graduate.

I’ll be happy once I find a job.

I’ll be happy once I get a promotion.

I’ll be happy once I get a new car.

I’ll be happy once I lose weight.

I’ll be happy once I find a partner.

Oh, but surely you jest. You know it’s a lie too.

Sometimes all I want to do is reach out and shake people by the shoulders-

“Really? Are you really going to happy as soon as you’re thin? Because after you spend all that time starving yourself and counting calories and running on never-ending treadmills, you will finally be thin enough and pretty enough to be happy?”

Is that it?

The truth is you don’t know what you are without the next step of the ladder. As soon as you don’t have something to look for, something to dedicate all your energy and time to, you’ll have nothing left.

What are you going to cling to after that?

For me, personally, I need to write. I need to tell stories and it doesn’t even have to be with words. I need to write and draw and paint and think up stupid stories and inherently flawed characters that nobody else will really understand or bother to read about but me.

Maybe it’s not the same as yours, that slight dream called ‘purpose’ in your life. But just like what everyone else might deem as ‘happiness’; mine too, is transient and will vanish in the end. 

So I’ll tell you what I cling to instead.

Paul puts it best:

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—  that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

-Philippians 3: 7-11 (ESV) 

Because honestly, what is gain in this life worth? The life we live on earth is so small, so transient, it disappears before you know it. At the end, what do you have left to hold onto?

Life doesn’t last. But God does.

And the most amazing thing of all is that this God, this creator of the universe, sent His son Jesus to die for us. That just throws our miniscule lives into perspective- nothing we do, nothing we can possibly gain in this world matters or lasts in comparison to the depth of God’s love and sacrifice for us.

And it doesn’t matter anymore what happens in this life, it doesn’t matter that you’re not smart or thin or pretty enough, because God’s love is so much bigger than all of it. It doesn’t even matter if you graduate or get a promotion or write the next bestseller, because the love of Jesus is enough. Being a child of God, your whole view of life is shifted, the old way of life is stripped away; you have a new purpose, you don’t look to the next step of the ladder anymore, because you are too busy looking upwards to where your Father is.

To know that, and to know that through Jesus Christ I have a new purpose in life is more than enough for me.

Oh, and there’s more.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

-Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

If the Father of the universe is behind you, what have you got to be scared of?