You Can't Stop God's Purposes
Photo image courtesy Pixabay
I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” – Job 42:2 (NIV)
What is your “why”?
How often have you heard that question? People urge us to find the one great purpose that will focus everything in our lives. They say our businesses will succeed when we correctly align our products with our purpose. Christians can worry endlessly about whether we’re really aligned with the greatest purpose God has in mind for our lives.
That kind of self-examination can be so paralyzing that I sometimes wish I weren’t a thinking person! It might be nice to be a tree. Or even a squirrel.
The trees I see out my office window don’t wonder if they’re fulfilling their purpose. They just grow confidently according to the character God has put in them. They’re white pines, birches, and oaks. They leaf out in season, produce chlorophyll and fruit over many months, then abandon all external signs of life during their winter rest.
The squirrels running up and down my yard aren’t worrying about their purpose. They find acorns, dig holes, and stuff acorns into the holes. According to people who study squirrels (yes, there really are such people!) they don’t even keep track of where they hide their acorns. They just stash so many in so many places that they can be confident of finding some of them somewhere when they’re hungry. It’s their God-given nature to collect, dig, and store up God’s abundant gifts for future provision. It’s even their God-given confidence to know that what they’ve stored might be harvested by another. Their God-given community allows all to have enough when everyone eats from what everyone has stored.
What if God’s purpose for me—the “why” of my life—is as simple as that? If I live according to the gifts God has given and the character God has put in me, then I can do what is in front of me today and be confident that I’m walking into God’s purpose for me. God is God, and no purpose of His can be thwarted. God’s purposes can’t be thwarted by my limits—which are considerable—nor by my pride and ambition—which might be considerably greater.
When my purpose is to fulfill God’s purpose, I can live free of worry about finding and fulfilling what I might imagine to be my “highest and best” purpose. The One who has established the right purpose for my life is able to accomplish everything. I’m here for the food and the storage and the digging. I’m here to be rooted in the place He has established for me, whether this is a season for leaves or acorns or winter winds.
I don’t have to understand God’s purpose for my life to live into it. I just need to know that God is able, and that I’m not able to thwart His purposes. I can walk forward in confidence that God will lead me with Him on the path He has planned.
Questions for Reflection:
1. If I’m like a tree, what season am I in? What purpose might this season have for me?
2. If I’m like a squirrel, what are the gifts God is dropping abundantly around me? Which ones are for today and which are to be stored for the future? What purpose can I find in accumulating God’s gifts to be used whenever and by whoever they are needed?
