What is the Purpose for my Life?

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV). Question: What is my purpose? Answer: God has a purpose for your life (Jeremiah 29:11) He wouldn't have created you otherwise. Rest assred that if you are living, God has a purpose for you.

God had an assignment in mind when He created you (Jeremiah 1:5). He fashioned you with the exact combination of personality traits, talents and abilities to accomplish that purpose. You are the only one who can do it exactly as God intended.

You can refuse to do your destiny. God will find someone else to do it, but that person won't do it as well as you would. You have the exact skills. Someone else would have to improvise.

It's like buying the perfect dress and having it ruined. Something happened to it. Perhaps it was lost at the cleaners or something spilled on it.

Then you go to the store and find a similar dress--maybe it has a bow in the back or it's not the right color or length. It's an okay dress, but it is not the same as the one that you had.

You are the perfect dress, shoes or baseball glove. You are first grade, top of the line. Your purpose, your destiny, is tailor-made for you, and you are tailormade for it. Until you find your purpose and begin fulfilling it, you will never truly be happy. Maybe you think you are content at a job you have been working at for fifteen years because you don't think you can do better. Perhaps you decided that you had no options but to be content muddling through day after day with no goals and dreams, just living from paycheck to paycheck.

Will you continue to wander around, believing that because you are a mother or a blue-collar worker; that you cannot fulfill the dreams you have in your heart? Or the plan God has for your life?

You make excuses. You are too old. You are too young. You are female. You are male. You are too emotional. You are too detached.

God isn't interested in your excuses. He is interested in your willingness to believe His plan for your life. He is interested in teaching and leading you through the Holy Spirit. He is not looking for a perfect vessel only a willing one.

How do you find God's plan for your life?

What did you dream of as a kid? I find that the dreams you dream as a kid, the things you play about as a child, reveal something about your purpose.

I used to play teacher. I'd line my dolls up and play school. I had a chalkboard on my toy chest and an old health textbook that one of my teachers gave me.

I love to teach as much as I love to write. I once tutored a woman in a computer course I knew nothing about. I only had a manual and God to help me...and she received an "A" in the class.

What do you dream about? What have you dreamed about doing for years?

What would you do if you had no limits? No fear? No money issues? No restrictions? What would you do? What would you accomplish?

What are your strengths? Your weaknesses? What are your deepest desires? These may be clues into what God wants you to do with your life.

Do you remember the movie Sister Act II: Back In The Habit? Whopi Goldberg's character Deloris Van Cartier AKA Sister Mary Clarence told Rita Watson, one of the students the Sister taught in music class, "If you wake up in the morning, and you can't think anything but singing, then you should be a singer, girl."

What is that thing with you? Is it writing? Praying? Preaching? Teaching? Practicing law? Practicing medicine? Ballet? Then that is what you are supposed to do.

If you are a Born-again Christian (Romans 10:9-10), God has planted His dreams inside your heart. These are dreams that stay with you day after day, month after month, year after year, decade after decade.

What do you do when you believe you have a dream from God, but you aren't completely sure?

The best thing to do is pray. Get quiet before God and discuss the dream with Him. If you have the evidence of speaking in tongues, pray that way at this time. Then listen for God to speak. The Bible says in Psalms 37:4 when you delight yourself in the Lord, He will give you the desires of your heart. The more you delight yourself in the Lord, the more He will exchange your desires for His.

If when you pray and listen to God, the desire to do that thing becomes stronger, more often than not, it is God.

If, however, the desire wanes, or you start feeling anxiety or dread, toward it, it is not God.

The Bible tells you in Colossians 3:15 (AMP) to let the Peace of God be the umpire of your heart. If you continue to pray and feel peace about the situation, that's God. If you don't, then it's not.

Some things that look right to you, or are real good things, are not God's best for you. Or it could just not be the right timing. Delay doesn't always mean denial.

Continue to seek God concerning His plans for your life. You have to get His Word on it.

You can have a man or woman of God tell you what you should do. They may even say they heard from God on it. If you don't get it from God Himself, though, you will always wonder if that person really heard from God.

Go to the Source. Have God confirm or deny what that person has said.

God has a plan for you; A glorious plan for your life. Be willing to let Him accomplish it through you.

Seek His plan for your life today (Matthew 6:33). Then He can do exceedingly, abundantly above all you can ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).