How do we live a life of purpose and remain motivated in the process? False identities and other obstacles may keep us from this peaceful, purposeful life we crave. However, we may get back to this purpose through our stories in Christ.
On the A Healing Peace podcast, we talked about Abraham’s journey and heard from speaker and coach Marcia N. Cole on this topic. Now, it is time to dig into the tools and tips that will help us live a life of purpose in our everyday lives.
10 Tips to Live a Life of Purpose
1. Listen to the Voices Guiding You
To be purpose-driven requires healing and embracing your story. In this healing stage, you are getting to a place where you are loving yourself and placing yourself in a position to hear God’s voice. Unfortunately, when we are immersed in our pain, our pain creates a loud voice that pushes out the voice of God.
Identify the loud voice that is competing with God. Spend about 15 minutes sitting still. As you are in this still place, identify the situation or emotions that your body signals.
In moments of silence, the lingering of our unresolved pain surfaces. Instead of brushing it off, identify the experience and begin the process of healing. You may want to start journaling through the situation or find a safe friend to discuss your experiences with. You may also seek additional help from individuals like therapists who have the tools to address the wound.
2. Get in God’s Presence
Get alone time with God. You can be creative with this time by reading the bible, praying, praising, and worshiping Him. Your time with God does not have to be boring. Because God is not boring.
Start small and build yourself up. Do five minutes initially until you become used to spending time with God in this fashion. The key to building yourself up means that each day you are making an effort towards the goal. In one week, start with five minutes and set a goal that by the end of the week, you increase it to seven minutes. Now, you are making progress!
3. Identify Obstacles
Get to know upcoming obstacles so you can navigate them while establishing your no’s. Expect the enemy to attack you, but also establish a game plan beforehand to overcome it.
For instance, if you made the declaration that you will spend 30 minutes reading God’s word. Then, sure enough, the phone rings, and a friend or your child has an emergency. Once you are done, you forgot about reading the Bible and you never go back to your time with God.
Yes, this happens to us all the time. Planning to overcome the obstacle means, telling friends you are unavailable during these times of the day. Or telling your child if he or she forgets her backpack, the child will have to wait until you can bring it.
4. Understand Your Identity
Being called to your purpose will likely require you to understand God’s voice and your identity. To do this, you need to address the false identities that develop over time.
If you have an experience that creates a wound in which you continue to live, you may assume the limitations created by these false identities.
5. Dig into Your Purpose
We can always live on purpose and we continue in that purpose when we share our story with others. Our stories and our pain help others. The Bible says this in 2 Cor 1:3 – 5. Just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. As we heal, grow, and learn, God provides comfort. With this same comfort, we pour out onto others when they experience something similar.
Pray and ask God to provide an opportunity and the courage to share what you learned with someone. Now after you pray and He provides the opportunity, please follow through with it. Inspire others on how to overcome and push through. Initially, you may think that you cannot do that. However, it is amazing what God can do through you. He will provide the words and the courage to share His comfort.
6. Remember Your Impact
We all have moments where we want to throw in the towel. Things do not always work out to how we planned or envisioned. When we cannot remind ourselves of this truth, God sends someone to remind us.
You can remain successful by remembering that who you are, your purpose and your life experiences impact those around you. As you do this, you are forcing yourself outside of your thoughts and feelings, while pushing yourself toward the understanding that your story is for God’s glory.
7. List Out Your Victories
As we fight not to throw in the towel or experience obstacles, remember that we are in a fixed fight. If you feel like the world is on your shoulders or the sky is falling, remember that no matter how much you may get punched, God still wins the battle.
Find battle scriptures that identify God’s power. Keep Psalm 91 as your battle scripture. Keep a list where you identify previous victories to remind yourself of God’s power.
For instance, if you had a bill due and you had no idea how you were going to pay it. Lo and behold, someone informs you that you are due a refund so you can pay your bill on time.
8. Move into Forgiveness
Being purposeful requires forgiveness. When we are not living in forgiveness, we allow people to force us to live in a powerless state. Why? When we are not forgiving others, we cannot hear or see clearly. Instead, we are living in a place of hurt and pain.
On the other hand, when we forgive others, we free ourselves and the pain no longer has power over us. Thus, forgiveness provides the freedom for us to live in our purpose. We are not projecting our experiences onto others in a negative way, instead, we can inspire others with our experiences.
You may need to forgive yourself. You may need to forgive yourself for past mistakes and the hurts you caused others. Now how do we go through this process of forgiving others and ourselves?
9. Go Through the Process
Going through forgiveness can be very much like going through the grief process. The five stages of grief include Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
In grief recovery, we learn to not cut off any stage. We learn to be patient with ourselves as we complete the stages. Therefore, as you process and work toward forgiveness, recognize that you are also grieving your loss in the experience. However, ultimately, you want to get to the acceptance phase.
In the acceptance phase, you also no longer hold the offense against the person. This does not mean that you agree with the wrongful behavior or think that the wrongful behavior was okay. In the acceptance phase, if you were the offender, you address the wound that you caused the other person, i.e., you take responsibility.
Lastly, in the acceptance phase, you identify what you learned in the experience. Allowing yourself the freedom to grow from the experience relinquishes the power that it holds against you.
Want help going through this process? Join us for our Living Free to Be Me program where we guide you through a holistic curriculum with interactive resources to help you find freedom, heal your heart, embrace God, and receive closure from past hurts.
10. Use your Spiritual Weapons
Your first response may be to try to overcome obstacles on your own. However, you can overcome those obstacles with spiritual weapons. These are reading, praying, fasting, praising, and worshiping Him. Yes, these items are so much more powerful than your strength. With or without obstacles, our actions should lead us to chase God instead of our purpose. In the end, living a life of purpose comes down to pursuing God. Fear God and keep his commandments. With God, our purpose is more than we realize. In the simplest aspects of our lives, we can impact others around us.
