What am I supposed to do with my life?

The Calm My Anxious Heart chapter that we're reading in my women's Bible study talks about purpose in life and encourages everyone to have a purpose statement. But it's really short on how to develop one other than to open your Bible and have magic happen.

At the same time, I've been listening to some old talks by Alan Andrews, a former president of the Navigators, and they've made me think of some questions or experiences that can be useful in identifying purpose.

In the first talk, Andrews mentions that all followers of Jesus have 3 callings: to repentance, to discipleship, and to laboring. So the first call is to turn away from our sin and toward Jesus and his saving grace through his death, burial and resurrection. The second call is to discipleship, which Dallas Willard describes as a lifelong apprenticeship with Jesus meaning we learn how to live by watching and being with Jesus.

The third call is laboring which to Andrews and the Navigators is about the work of moving people in the direction of Jesus either in a conversion experience or a discipleship process. I think about laboring as service. Sometimes people need to be served with truth about Jesus or how to have an ongoing walk with Him, and sometimes people need to be served with general acts of friendship, and sometimes people need actual serving that they could never repay.

If these are primary callings from Jesus, then when we throw up our hands asking "Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing with my life?" we can start with these follow up questions:

1. Am I living a life of repentance where I'm walking away from sin and toward Jesus?
2. Do I allow Jesus and what I know about Him from the Bible to govern my choices?
3. Am I faithfully serving others, making someone(s) other than myself a priority?

I think these are important questions because I wonder if we see the purposes God has in our lives as we allow Him to shape our character and reveal our gifts.

We need our character to be God-shaped because purpose without God is like traveling with a broken compass. You'll get somewhere, but it probably won't be where you want to go.

We need to understand our gifts because we're told in scripture (I Corinthians 12, Romans 12, Ephesians 4) that everyone has some spiritual gift and that the differences are like the different parts of the body--critical functions that are different but part of a working whole. And we recognize our gifts and our community recognizes our gifts as we serve.

So if you're trying to figure out what your purpose in life is and you haven't submitted to the rule of Jesus and developed godly character, start there. And if you've done that, then start faithfully serving others. If you've been slacking at work, stop slacking. Do your job (even if you hate it). If you've never helped out your community, i.e. neighborhood, city, local church, do that for a while (even if it is uncomfortable).

You might not be writing a purpose statement during that time, but you're learning to entrust your life to God, and that thrills him, and what's the point to all this if we're not pleasing God?

But let's say you've done all this and you really want to have a purpose statement. I think some quiet time alone with God, reviewing your experiences in God's word, in work, play, and service, I think you'll see themes. That's where the purpose statement comes from.

---
I'll write my personal reflections up in another post since this has gotten long. Oh, and before I forget, my favorite book on this topic is Os Guinness's The Call.