Igniting Purpose: Why Are You Still Here?

Last week, we stood in front of a mirror and asked a difficult question: What happens when God’s Word disagrees with the person we see staring back at us? We discovered that truth must begin with God because our emotions, experiences, successes, failures, and even the opinions of others can distort our perception. If the reflection disagrees with God’s Word, then the reflection must shatter.

But truth was never intended merely to correct the way we think. Truth should change the direction of our lives. That is why the philosophy behind Relentless Coaching & Consulting follows a progression:

Teaching Truth. Igniting Purpose. Transforming Lives.

If God’s truth changes what I believe, then eventually it should change how I live. But before that can happen, I have to answer another question—one that became painfully personal for me several years ago.

Why am I still here?

When Purpose Disappears

For much of my adult life, I believed I understood my purpose. I was a husband. I was a father. I was a provider. I worked hard, earned a good living, took care of my family, and measured much of my value by how well I fulfilled those responsibilities. Those were not bad things. In fact, Scripture places tremendous responsibility upon a man to care for his family. The problem was not that those things mattered too much. The problem was that somewhere along the way, I allowed the roles God had given me to become the source from which I derived my purpose.

Then life began taking those roles apart.

My first marriage ended in divorce, and with it disappeared much of the family structure around which I had built my life. Several years later, I buried my twenty-five-year-old son. The career and financial stability that had once reinforced my identity as a provider changed as well. One by one, the things I had used to answer the question “Why am I here?” seemed to disappear.

And that is when the bottle got heavy.

For years, I could have explained my drinking by saying I was trying to numb the pain. There is certainly some truth in that, but I no longer believe it tells the whole story. I was not simply hurting. I was lost. I had spent decades believing my purpose was centered in being a husband, father, and provider, and when those pieces of my life fell by the wayside, I no longer knew why I existed.

Eventually that loss of purpose became dangerous. There came a point when I was not merely wondering what I should do with the rest of my life; I was questioning whether I wanted to continue living it. If the things that had given my life meaning were gone, what exactly was I still here for?

It has taken years for me to understand that I had confused my purpose with the platforms through which I had been living it. Being a husband mattered. Being a father mattered. Providing for my family mattered. But none of those things created my purpose because none of those things created me.

My Provider did.

Purpose Begins With Your Provider

Paul wrote:

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10, KJV)

Those words completely change the starting point. Paul does not say that we are our own workmanship, created to pursue whatever makes us happy. He says that we are His workmanship. If God created me, redeemed me, gifted me, and has ordained good works in which I should walk, then I cannot properly understand the purpose of my life apart from Him.

We live in a culture obsessed with finding ourselves. We are encouraged to follow our passions, pursue our dreams, discover what makes us happy, and create the life we have always wanted. But biblical purpose begins with a fundamentally different question. Instead of asking, “What do I want to do with my life?” perhaps I should first ask, “God, what do You want to do with the life You gave me?”

That distinction matters because purpose that originates with me can disappear when my circumstances change. Purpose that originates with God remains anchored to Someone who does not.

My divorce could change my circumstances. The death of my son could devastate my family. A career change could affect my ability to provide. But none of those things could rewrite Ephesians 2:10. Through every one of those circumstances, I remained His workmanship.

Purpose Is Balanced With Your Principles

If purpose begins with God, then it must also operate within the boundaries of what God has said. We do not get to decide what we want, label it our “calling,” and then ask God to bless it. His purpose will never require us to violate His principles.

Jesus prayed to the Father:

“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” (John 17:17, KJV)

That is why Teaching Truth must precede Igniting Purpose. I cannot determine whether the direction of my life is consistent with God’s purpose if I do not know God’s principles. His Word establishes the boundaries. It corrects my motives, confronts my selfishness, exposes my sin, and teaches me what faithfulness actually looks like.

This is also where purpose can become uncomfortable. Sometimes what I want and what God has said travel in different directions. Sometimes my ambitions sound noble but are fueled by pride. Sometimes an opportunity looks perfect but requires compromise. Sometimes I can become so consumed with accomplishing something for God that I neglect what God has already commanded me to do.

Purpose without principles can quickly become nothing more than baptized ambition.

If I believe God is leading me somewhere, then His Word must remain the measuring stick. God does not contradict Himself. Whatever purpose He has for my life will always be consistent with the truth He has already revealed.

Purpose Is Brought About By Your Presence

One of the great frustrations of searching for purpose is our tendency to look somewhere else for it. We imagine another job, another city, another opportunity, another relationship, another ministry, or another season of life where we will finally become useful. Meanwhile, we can completely overlook what God has placed directly in front of us.

When God called Moses, Moses immediately began explaining his inadequacies. Eventually the Lord asked him a wonderfully practical question:

“And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod.” (Exodus 4:2, KJV)

Moses was worried about what he lacked. God began with what he already possessed.

Perhaps we should ask ourselves the same question. What has God placed in my hands today? What gifts, talents, abilities, education, experiences, relationships, resources, and opportunities do I already possess? Who has God placed around me? What need can I meet? What responsibility is already mine?

And if what I currently possess is insufficient for the assignment before me, then perhaps part of my purpose is preparing myself for what comes next. We are not obligated to remain exactly as capable as we are today. Skills can be developed. Knowledge can be acquired. Weaknesses can be strengthened. Wisdom can be pursued. Preparation itself can become an act of stewardship.

Purpose does not give us permission to sit around waiting for God to make us capable. Sometimes purpose requires us to become more capable.

We may spend years waiting for some extraordinary calling while ignoring ordinary opportunities for faithfulness. God may certainly move us somewhere else tomorrow, but until He does, we are standing somewhere today. And there is purpose in our presence.

Purpose Is Bigger Than Your Platform

This may be the lesson I had to learn the hardest way.

A platform is simply a place from which purpose can be expressed. Husband. Father. Provider. Teacher. Executive. Pastor. Business owner. Author. Speaker. Minister. Each can become a meaningful assignment, and some carry enormous biblical responsibilities. But none of them is large enough to contain the entirety of God’s purpose for a human life.

Paul understood this because his platform changed repeatedly. He preached in synagogues, reasoned in marketplaces, stood before rulers, planted churches, mentored believers, and eventually found himself imprisoned. Yet from prison he wrote:

“But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel;” (Philippians 1:12, KJV)

The prison changed Paul’s platform without eliminating his purpose.

That distinction would have changed the way I understood some of the darkest years of my life. When my marriage ended, I believed part of my purpose had disappeared. When my son died, another enormous piece seemed to die with him. When my ability to define myself by financial provision and professional accomplishment changed, I felt increasingly unnecessary.

But God’s calling was bigger than any one of those platforms.

That does not minimize their loss. It does not make divorce painless or death less devastating. It means that when circumstances remove one place from which we have lived our purpose, God is still God, we are still His workmanship, and there are still good works in which He has called us to walk.

Sometimes the platform changes while the purpose remains.

Purpose Is Blessed When It’s Practiced

Eventually purpose has to move beyond discovery.

James wrote:

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” (James 1:22–25, KJV)

There is our mirror again.

Last week, we used this passage to examine the importance of allowing God’s Word to correct our reflection. But James does not stop with seeing what is true. The man who is blessed is the man who sees the truth, continues therein, and becomes a doer of the work.

Purpose must be practiced.

I can know the truth about being a husband without loving my wife properly. I can know the truth about fatherhood without investing in my children. I can know the truth about stewardship without developing what God has placed in my hands. I can know the truth about forgiveness while refusing to forgive. I can know the truth about service while never serving anyone.

Truth that never produces obedience has not completed its work in me.

Paul described transformation this way:

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:2, KJV)

The progression is beginning to come into focus.

God’s truth renews the way I think. Renewed thinking changes the way I understand my purpose. Purpose gives direction to my actions. And as biblical truth is repeatedly practiced, something begins happening to the person practicing it.

His life begins to change.

Why Are You Still Here?

I cannot tell you specifically why God has allowed you to wake up today. I do not know what He has placed in your hands, what opportunities surround you, what abilities still need to be developed, or what platform He may use in the next season of your life.

But I do know that your purpose is not yours to manufacture.

It begins with your Provider. It is balanced with His principles. It is brought about by your presence. It is bigger than your platform. And ultimately, it is blessed when it is practiced.

For a long time, I thought losing the things around which I had built my life meant I had lost my reason to live it. I know differently today. The platforms changed. Some disappeared completely. Some can never be recovered. But the God who gave me life did not disappear with them.

So perhaps the question is not simply, “What is my purpose?”

Perhaps the better question is:

“God, why do You still have me here, and what would You have me do with today?”

Because truth was never intended merely to be learned. It was intended to change the way we live. And when the truth of God begins directing the purpose of our lives, transformation is no longer simply something we talk about.

It has already begun.

Teaching Truth. Igniting Purpose. Transforming Lives.