Why Am I Here?

Back in 2002, Rick Warren wrote an extremely popular book, The Purpose-Driven Life, in which readers were taken on a 40-day spiritual journey to discover the five purposes for human beings: Worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism. The book built on Warren's previous The Purpose-Driven Church. (As it turns out, the same five purposes were for the church as well.)

It is a common question: "What is my purpose in life?" We want to know why we're here. We want to understand what it all means. We don't want to believe that life is meaningless, that everything happens for no reason, and that I personally have no purpose in the grand scheme of things.

When you consider "things", that which is, it comes down to something quite simple. There is Creator and there is the created. That's all. Indeed, the created is a pure product of the Creator, having its very existence supplied and contained in Him. The Creator defines the created and, as the "artist" so to speak, gives the created its purpose. That which is created doesn't get the option to determine its own purpose. That's the sole right of the Creator.

What does the Creator say is the purpose of human life? "For by [Christ] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities -- all things were created through him and for him" (Col 1:16). For Him.

There are, I have no doubt, sub-purposes, so to speak. Worship is good. Fellowship, discipleship, all that stuff is good. They are, however, sub-purposes -- beneath a singular, overall, encompassing purpose that the Artist has given to His work. That singular purpose is to glorify Him. We might argue about some "social gospel" or Man's inhumanity to Man. We might debate our dominion over the earth or our "purpose" of saving the planet. We might come up with individual "purposes" where we seek and "find myself" (Where were you hiding?) and what I want to do. All well and good (perhaps), but there is an all-consuming, overarching purpose for human beings, and anything that operates outside of that purpose, as good as it might seem, is a waste at best and a disaster at worst. Despite the creation's best attempts at arguing our own purpose, the Creator is the only one who actually gets to decide. You might want to see if your idea of your purpose in life coincides with His.