Discovering God’s Purpose and Living It in Every Season
Over the years, many of us ask the same important questions:
Why am I here?
What has God called me to do?
How can I recognize God’s will?
Is there still a purpose for my life in this season?
Five Christian books have helped me think more deeply about these questions:
- Called for a Purpose by Tony Evans
- Discover Your Destiny by Tony Evans
- Discovering God’s Will in Your Life by Lloyd John Ogilvie
- The Call by Os Guinness
- Discover Your Destiny by Bill and Kathy Peel
Although these writers approach the subject differently, their central message is remarkably consistent: God created each of us intentionally, calls us into a relationship with Himself, and gives us a meaningful part in His work.
Our purpose is not something we manufacture. It is something we gradually discover as we know God, surrender ourselves to Him, recognize how He has shaped us, and faithfully respond to the opportunities He places before us.
Our First Calling Is to God
Os Guinness makes an essential distinction in The Call: our primary calling is not first to a career, ministry, location, or project. Our primary calling is to God Himself.
Before asking, “What should I do?” we must ask, “Whose am I?”
Jesus calls us to follow Him. Everything else—our work, relationships, service, giving, and influence—flows from that relationship. If we try to discover our purpose without first knowing the One who calls us, we may become busy and accomplished while still missing the heart of our calling.
This is especially important during times of transition. A job may end. A ministry role may change. A spouse may die. Children may move away. Health and circumstances may limit what we can do. But our primary calling does not disappear.
We still belong to God.
Our circumstances may change, but the Caller remains faithful.
We Were Created for a Purpose
Tony Evans emphasizes that our lives are not accidents. God created each person with intention and placed within us particular abilities, experiences, interests, relationships, and opportunities.
Our destiny is not primarily about personal success. It is about participating in God’s larger purposes. We are here to know God, reflect His character, serve others, and help advance His kingdom.
Purpose is therefore larger than employment. A person may retire from a career but never retire from God’s purposes. Our assignment may change, but our calling to love God and serve people continues.
God can use every part of our story:
- Our natural abilities
- Our spiritual gifts
- Our education and work
- Our relationships
- Our joys and disappointments
- Our successes and failures
- Our suffering and grief
- The people and places that have shaped us
Nothing surrendered to God needs to be wasted.
Even painful chapters can become places from which we encourage, comfort, teach, give, pray, or serve others.
God’s Will Begins With Relationship
Lloyd John Ogilvie reminds us that discovering God’s will is not merely finding a hidden answer to a difficult decision. It is learning to walk closely with God.
We often want God to give us a detailed map. God more often invites us to trust the Guide.
His will is not simply a destination. It is a relationship of daily dependence. As we pray, study Scripture, listen, seek wise counsel, and remain attentive to circumstances, God gradually shapes our desires and directs our steps.
Proverbs 3:5–6 expresses this beautifully:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.”
God’s guidance may come through open doors, closed doors, growing convictions, unexpected relationships, or needs placed directly in front of us. Guidance often becomes clearer as we begin obeying what God has already shown us.
We should not become so preoccupied with discovering the entire plan that we neglect today’s opportunity to be faithful.
Calling Includes Both Who We Are and What We Do
Bill and Kathy Peel encourage us to pay attention to the way God has uniquely designed us. Our interests, abilities, values, experiences, personality, and spiritual gifts can provide important clues to the work God may be inviting us to do.
However, discovering our design is not simply a form of self-exploration. It should lead to stewardship.
The important question is not merely, “What do I enjoy?” It is also:
How can what God has entrusted to me be used for His glory and the good of others?
Some people fulfill their calling publicly. Others serve quietly and faithfully. One person teaches. Another gives. Another organizes. Another listens. Another welcomes strangers. Another prays. Another encourages someone who is grieving or lonely.
No assignment is insignificant when it is offered to God.
Calling is not measured by visibility, applause, numbers, or recognition. It is measured by faithfulness.
Purpose Is Discovered Through Faithful Action
One shared teaching of these books is that purpose is seldom discovered through reflection alone. We usually understand our calling more clearly while we are serving, experimenting, learning, and responding to actual needs.
We may wait for absolute certainty before moving forward. But God often provides enough light for the next step rather than illuminating the whole road.
A conversation may lead to a relationship.
A relationship may reveal a need.
A need may become an assignment.
A small act of obedience may grow into a meaningful ministry.
We do not need to force doors open, but neither should we remain motionless while waiting for a dramatic sign. We can prayerfully take the next faithful step and trust God to redirect us when necessary.
As Tony Evans teaches, God’s purpose is fulfilled under God’s authority. We do not ask God merely to bless the plans we have created. We surrender our plans and ask Him to use our lives according to His purposes.
Calling Continues Through Every Season
Purpose does not belong only to the young. God called Abraham in his later years. Moses began his greatest assignment at eighty. Scripture repeatedly shows God using people whose lives appeared to have entered their final chapters.
Later life may actually provide resources that were unavailable earlier:
- Years of experience
- Greater perspective
- Lessons learned through hardship
- Financial resources to steward
- Relationships built over decades
- More time for prayer and encouragement
- Stories that should be preserved and shared
- Wisdom to pass to younger generations
The form of our calling may change. We may move from doing to mentoring, from leading to encouraging, from traveling to giving, or from carrying a large responsibility to faithfully helping one person.
But changed capacity does not mean diminished worth.
God may not be asking us to repeat yesterday’s assignment. He may be preparing a new expression of the same lifelong calling.
Grief Can Become Part of Our Calling
The loss of someone we deeply love changes how we understand ourselves and our future. We may wonder, “Who am I now?” and “What does God still have for me?”
Grief does not erase our calling, but it may reshape it.
The love shared with a spouse does not have to be left behind. It can be carried forward through the values we continue, the stories we preserve, the people we help, and the ministries we support.
Honoring the life of someone we love can become part of our faithful response to God—but we must also remain open to the new life God is placing before us.
We do not have to choose between remembering the past and living in the present. With God’s help, we can do both.
Continuing to live does not mean leaving our loved one behind. It means allowing the love, faith, and lessons of that relationship to continue bearing fruit.
A Simple Framework for Discernment
When considering a new opportunity, ministry, relationship, trip, gift, or project, we can prayerfully ask:
- Does this agree with Scripture and honor Jesus?
- Does it help me know and love God more deeply?
- Does it use something God has entrusted to me?
- Does it meet a real need or serve another person?
- Is this opportunity consistent with my present season and responsibilities?
- Have wise and spiritually mature people confirmed it?
- Am I responding from faith and love—or from fear, guilt, loneliness, or pressure?
- Can I take one reasonable next step without forcing the outcome?
- Am I willing to accept either an open door or a closed door?
- Can I entrust the results to God?
These questions may not immediately produce certainty, but they can help us move forward with wisdom, humility, and peace.
The Central Message
Taken together, these five books teach us that calling is not primarily about finding one perfect assignment. It is about becoming a person who is continually available to God.
We are called first to Jesus.
We discover purpose by walking with Him.
We recognize how He has shaped us.
We surrender our gifts, experiences, resources, relationships, and even our suffering.
Then we faithfully respond to the people and opportunities He places before us.
Perhaps the question is not only:
“What is God’s will for the rest of my life?”
Perhaps the more helpful question is:
“Lord, what have You entrusted to me, who have You placed near me, and what is the next faithful thing You are asking me to do?”
We may not see the entire road ahead. We do not need to. God knows the road, and He promises to walk it with us.
Our assignment may change. Our strength may change. Our circumstances may change. But as long as God gives us life, we can remain available to Him.
We are still called.
We are still being guided.
We still have something to give.
And God is not finished with our story.
Prayer
Lord, thank You for creating me intentionally and calling me first to Yourself. Help me understand how You have shaped my life and how You want to use everything You have entrusted to me. Give me wisdom to recognize Your direction, courage to take the next faithful step, and patience when the way is not yet clear.
Help me remember the people and experiences that have shaped me without becoming unable to receive the new things You may be doing. Take my gifts, resources, memories, grief, relationships, and remaining years, and use them for Your glory and the good of others.
Keep me from forcing doors You have not opened or ignoring opportunities You have placed before me. May I live faithfully in this present season, trusting that my ultimate purpose is to know You, love You, follow You, and make Your love known.
In Jesus’s name, amen.
