Exploring Deeper - Does Life Have Purpose?

The past several weeks my church as well as 370+ other churches in Greater Austin have been tackling some of most ask questions by those who are spiritually curious.  The movement, called "Explore God," is a spiritual-awareness campaign with the goal of getting people to have conversations about God naturally and frequently.  The campaign is anchored by an extremely well done website and a citywide marketing campaign.  In early September we began this discussion of the "7 Big Questions" and in an effort to write a bit more on the blog I thought I would back track and discuss each of these topics.  Hopefully I will catch up, but if I don't I think it's still good conversation.  

Usually when someone is asked "Tell me a little bit about yourself" our usual answer is what we do for a living.  We have defined ourselves by our work, I think, because our work is important to us.  Folks in my generation often hop from job to job looking for "meaningful work."

Or possibly we are hoping to one day find purpose.

Maybe in the pursuit of meaningful work we are looking for a deeper purpose in our own lives....How existential of us!!

All kidding aside, have you ever thought of your purpose in life?  When we were discussing this topic in preparation for our worship service that kicked off Explore God with this question we quickly realized that this is not a question often asked out loud in our churches.

We had some really interesting conversations at our discussion group.  One of the things that resonated with us was a statement in the video that serves as a conversation starter in our groups.  One of the commentators said something to the effect of "I think that purpose is often something we find out at the end of a journey and not at the beginning."

I think in many aspects that statement is true.  To be cliche, hindsight is always 20/20.  So maybe if we are frantically looking for purpose we should take a step back and take some time to reflect on if our purpose is already being fulfilled.

There was another in the video who was a professional artist who explained how he rarely goes to a canvas with a predetermined purpose for the piece.  Instead he let's the piece define itself as he works through it.  This resonated with me as a person who has considered himself a work in process in many respects.  There was a season of my life that I went through where I had no idea where I belonged or what my purpose in life was.  I had all but given up on the idea of one day being in professional ministry.  I was constantly looking potential career paths that would satisfy my longing for purpose.  However, it was only when I stepped back and accepted my role that I was in that God began to reveal to me a greater sense of belonging and purpose.  During that time, I was able to serve in a ministerial capacity I would have never thought I would be pursuing.  It's obvious now that in that time God was grooming me for the role in which I am no serving.

Sorry if you came here for answers....I'm not sure I have them...

But how about some questions to consider as we close out:

What do you think your purpose in life is?

Have you ever been in a season of life where you were able look back and see how God was using you in that time?  

What do you think gives us purpose in life?