It is important to ask yourself some penetrating questions from time to time. So frequently we string our days on earth together by living only in the moment, addicted to drama, just getting through each day. A life so lived is robbed of deep meaning and value.

Some starter questions to ask and answer might be the age-old philosophical questions that probe to our core. “What is my purpose here on earth?”, “What is my identity?”, “What is the meaning of my life?”. It is surprising how tough such simple sounding questions are to answer adequately.

I love looking through second-hand stores, pawn shops and the like. One of the attractions of doing so is occasionally running across an item for which I have no idea what it does or what function it was supposed to perform. Sometimes I have been able to figure out the mystery by studying the item a bit. Sometimes I remain uninformed. When I can’t find the answer for the purpose of a mysterious item, I know if I could only ask the designer, the maker of whatever it is, I could get the right answer. Once knowing the purpose, I can use the item to do whatever it was designed to do and benefit from it’s utility.

When we struggle to answer questions like, “what is my purpose?”, it is wonderful to know that we can go to the designer, the maker to ask the question and get the answer to our question. If we assume we are “cosmic accidents” and there is no designer or maker for the human race, then as god-deniers assert, we have no purpose whatsoever. That’s a little bleak and full of despair for me. I see to much evidence that leads me to believe there is a creator and maker. If there is, He had some idea of why He made me. I can get the answer from Him.

Knowing my purpose, knowing who I am and why my life has meaning gives me greatly increased enjoyment of life in the place of bleak despair.

Asking the Creator about my purpose is rarely a black and white answer. Most often the answer is found in my search, study and inquiry in the written record He has left us. It is also found in what happens inside of me when I begin to discover the answer through my searching.

What happens inside of you when you participate in something that has great meaning and value? Perhaps when you help a neighbor fix a broken car, when you provide a meal for a hungry person, when you right a wrong or when you give to a noble cause you feel something really good inside you. That is when you can realize you are on the right track to discovering the answers to the deep penetrating questions of life. This kind of discovery is deeper, more satisfying than selfish indulgement or personal pleasure. It is not only something that we feel but touches the lives of others in beneficial and powerful ways.

That really good feeling inside of you is life! When you discover what gives you life, you discover the path intended to lead you to your purpose and what gives meaning to your existence.

Jesus stated His purpose in coming to earth in the gospel of John: “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10

Jesus is the creator, the maker of the human race. He came that we might find life and not just enough to survive, but abundant life. In teaching us how to live the abundant life, we continually discover that our purpose is not all about ourselves but about releasing the life of the creator, our maker has given us to those around us.

I invite you to a journey of discovery and as you search for the deep answers to life that connects us to the life-giving purpose for which we are made.

Rev. Stephen Brown is the pastor of Kenai New Life Assembly of God. He has pastored New Life for the past 28 years. He and the congregation invite you to join them each Sunday morning. See www.kenainewlife.org for more information.