When I wrote Live Free: Making Sense of Male Sexuality, I sought to address the felt problem of a person’s bondage to lust. More than helping people overcome lust, however, I wanted to help them find their purpose in life.
What I had found and continue to experience is that when a person lives with a keen sense of purpose in life they don’t struggle with habitual sins.
Why is that?
Because we settle for lesser pleasure, like sexually erotic entertainment, when we feel the need to numb something inside ourselves. It could be pain we’re numbing, and that’s the place I start when talking with someone who struggles with lust. But it could also be a lack of purpose we’re trying to ignore. Inevitably, even when someone is dealing with a wound, they are also dealing with uncertainty as to what specific value they bring to the world around them.
This is why the last section of the book, “Stay Free,” deals with finding purpose.
When it comes to finding your purpose in life, we often hear one of two things. Either we hear a super generic Christianese explanation, such as “your purpose is to glorify God,” or we’re given a conglomeration of tests to fill out to find our “sweet spot.”
Most people come away with slight frustration more than increased clarity.
“Glorify God” doesn’t tell me how I can use my skills in practical and helpful ways today. But unless you’ve had substantial experience already, “find your sweet spot” feels like looking for a needle in a haystack.
This is why I think it’s important to realize that when we talk about finding purpose in life we’re talking about two aspects of ourselves. First, we are looking for answers to deep existential questions we have, whether aware of them or not.
“Why am I here?”
“Why did my mom die?”
“Will I ever get married?”
On the surface, these questions may not seem related to each other. As they pile up, however, we begin feeling increasing anxiety.
These questions address things that give us a purpose: a reason for living, meaningful relationships, something or someone to live for beyond myself.
As Viktor Frankl put it in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, “Man’s greatest drive is not for pleasure, but for meaning. When he cannot find a deep sense of meaning, he distracts himself with pleasure.”
Have you ever had a moment in life where you felt fully alive? Have you ever stopped and realized that you could do whatever it is you were doing at that time for the rest of your life? In other words, you thoroughly enjoyed it. Even more than simply enjoying it, however, you felt as though you were doing something good and important.
In such a moment, you had a deep sense of meaning. You felt a clear sense of purpose in life.
The question is, how do we get to the place where we sense that on a daily basis?
This is where it comes to the second aspect of ourselves that we are talking about when we talk about finding purpose in life. Along with looking for answers to existential questions we have, we are looking to discover how we can practically add value to the world around us.
Where can we leave our mark?
What can we do that will cause people to forever look back and say, “John did that,” and it’s something good and beautiful?
How can we make our daily lives and our jobs fulfilling and exciting?
Does God Really Care about What Happens to Me?
Have you ever asked the question, “Does God care about what we’re going through right now? He cares deeply. Let me show you…
This is why so many life coaches encourage people to take personality tests that help us better understand our interests, our giftings, and the way we handle stress. Through these tests, we gain a better picture of the type of work we will thrive in.
The problem is that getting intellectual answers to existential questions and learning more about your personality and skillset are not enough to make you feel a deep sense of purpose in life.
Feeling purpose in life ebbs and flows as you feel many other things throughout your life.
Trauma trumps all other emotions.
- Losing a loved one.
- Being betrayed.
- Experiencing abuse or rejection.
- Losing your home.
- Having broken relationships.
- Going through physical accidents.
All of these are forms of trauma that can cause you to feel as though life isn’t worth living. At the very least, you will find yourself distracted by pleasure.
But something else also affects our sense of purpose. Just as finding our purpose in life helps us overcome, sin in our lives causes us to lose a sense of purpose.
This is especially true for Christians.
After all, we know we are made in the image of God and are designed to glorify Him. We also know that when we are sinning we are not glorifying Him nor reflecting His image.
If you are a Christian, you want to glorify God. But you probably also see so many things in your life that don’t glorify Him. If you are like me, this either makes you feel like a fake or really frustrated.
Maybe both.
My greatest passion in life right now is helping people discover the story of God because what God is doing in life is incredibly beautiful.
But so many of us struggle to see the story. We read the Bible as if it’s a book for gaining inspiration or tips on how to do life well. Or we approach it primarily as a resource for getting data and quotes for lessons we prepare.
We miss that the Bible tells a story. Yes, we know it tells the story of Jesus, but we miss that every part of the biblical message pushes forward the narrative about Jesus and that our lives today are an extension of that same story.
Some of you have probably already felt a little disengaged now that I mentioned “the Bible.” Not that you don’t love Jesus and not that you don’t want to follow His Word.
It’s just that for some, His Word feels confusing and a little irrelevant to your life.
And that’s why I am so passionate about this right now. It is extremely relevant.
You see, Jesus knows that His followers are going to struggle with sin. He is not caught off guard when you proclaim His name and yet continue to struggle with things from your past.
He wants to transform you life and He will do that as you walk with Him. But He knows that you may not be transformed immediately.
How do I know this?
Because of the story.
We can point to a few specific passages that look as though true followers of Jesus should no longer struggle with sin. Passages such as,
“Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect…” (Matt. 5:48)
“Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Ro. 6:1-2)
But these don’t give a full picture of the story.
Only focusing on these passages ignore how Yahweh had known His people would turn away from Him even before He gave the Law (see Deut. 31:15-16, 30:15-18, & 30:4-6).
Yahweh identifies Himself as a “compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin…” (Ex. 34:6-7)
Paul says in Romans 8:23 that even those of us filled with the Holy Spirit groan inwardly as we wait to be set free from the bondage to corruption.
The idea that followers of Jesus will continue to struggle with sin is pretty basic to the biblical story. This is why Jesus and the apostles call Christians to a regular rhythm of repentance (see Matt 3:8, Luke 5:31-32, Ro. 2:4, 2Co. 7:9, Js. 5:16).
I believe we struggle to see the story of God fully, in part, because we struggle to see how we fit into it. This is partly due to the fact that while many of us have read the Bible since childhood, we may have not known how to read the Bible as it was intended to be read. Therefore, we see the Bible as book about what Christians should or shouldn’t do instead of a message about what God is doing in this world.
Part of finding your purpose in life is discovering where your sin fits into God’s story.
How does the story of your life push forward the story of Jesus when it doesn’t always look very beautiful?
As we begin discovering this at deeper levels, we find ourselves discovering a deeper sense of meaning and purpose.
So, what role does your sin have in the story of Jesus?
I invite you to watch the video below and learn how you can reflect God even when you are actively struggling with sin. You can image Him right here, right now, today.
Have you experienced self-condemnation because of your ongoing struggle with sin? What do you do with that?
Does your church have a regular rhythm of repentance?
I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
In a few days, I’m going to share the third and final episode in this series called, Christians Are Called to Make Disciples, Not Converts.
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