MR MNM:
Many people feel a lack of purpose or meaning in their life when dealing with daily struggles and routines. The lack of purpose can leave a person feeling tired, burned out, or disconnected. Losing our sense of purpose can occur when we get so fatigued spiritually or mentally that we cannot function properly. Unfortunately, this is a prevalent issue in society today, including amongst believers. To get past this, we need to do something different.
It’s important to step back and evaluate our daily routines. This could mean changing something in our schedule to help disrupt the thought patterns and break out of the rut. Or it could mean shifting our focus off ourselves and onto the Lord. Our situations, feelings, desires, and trials are all temporary. If we shift our focus to the One who is eternal, He will help inform and improve our decision-making because He provides a true and steady context for our lives.
Foundationally, we were all made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-28). The original purpose was to be fruitful & multiply and to steward the earth in the midst & presence of God Himself. After Adam sinned, God still had a plan to restore man back to Himself. Part of that plan was through Abraham and his offspring. In Deuteronomy 6, God revealed Himself to Israel through Moses: v4 says “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” He then went on to instruct how we are to respond with this revelation in verses 5-9: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
We were all made for a specific purpose – to Love Him, and to extend that same love to others. Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-39 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
To get to this place of loving God and loving others, it’s imperative for us to continuously remind ourselves of the reality and Truth of God. This could be in the form of prayer, meditation, or study of His Word to make it more real and bigger in our hearts and minds than our thoughts and feelings. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
We are made new and are given a chance to live in that newness of life to honor Jesus’ sacrifice and the Spirit of Truth. 2 Timothy 1 states that God “saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Daily prayer and study helps to displace the sense of ambiguity and listlessness with purpose, hope, and direction. The entrance of God’s Word brings light and revelation (Psalms 119:130). The revelation shifts our sense of lack of purpose to faith and assurance. It begins to magnify and honor the Lord in all that we do so that there is true fulfillment in our routines.
