I love the first sentence in Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life book:

“It’s not about you”

That first statement takes many of us by surprise. What do you mean; it’s not all about me? I thought my purpose in life was to make a good living and provide for myself and my family.

We often confuse personal fulfillment with purpose. Further complicating matters is the fact that our society places a high value on our own personal fulfillment. After all we deserve a bigger home, newer car, and a fantastic sex life even if it has to be accomplished with a little blue pill. If I never experience these things am I a failure? Doesn’t my family deserve the very best things this world has to offer? Will my children still love me if I send them to school with an iPhone 4 instead of the new 5S?

And then there’s those of us that figure we’ve screwed up our lives so badly that there can’t be any purpose left anyway. We aren’t worried about finding purpose, we’re just trying to figure out how to make it through the next day and at times we aren’t sure that we even want to make it through it.

We aren’t alone in trying to figure out what the purpose of life is. Solomon was the wisest man to ever live and here’s what he had to say about it.

These are the words of the Teacher, King David’s son, who ruled in Jerusalem. “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!” What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes. The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles. Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea. Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content. Ecclesiastes 1:1-8 (NLT)

Wow! That’s not very encouraging is it?

We have all kinds of crazy ideas of what it looks like to have purpose in our lives. What if we have all of this wrong? What if success can’t be determined in monetary terms and purpose can’t be defined by personal achievement?

Join us this Sunday for the last installment of our Happy, Happy, Happy series where we will explore how to find purpose and joy in your life.

Don’t forget to wear you best camouflage for this special Sunday 🙂