Designed for His Purpose

Before I begin talking about how God has uniquely designed each of us for His purposes, I want to tell you a little about me, and more importantly, about the journey God has taken me on.

Because I believe you deserve to know something about the man who is standing before you and why this subject has become so important to me.

When I look back over my life now, I can see something I could not see while I was living it.

There were experiences I thought were simply part of life. There were opportunities I considered accomplishments. There were difficult seasons I would gladly have avoided. There were people God placed in my life who shaped me in ways I could not appreciate at the time.

But looking back now, I see something very different.

I see a God who was designing a life for His purposes.

My journey has taken me through many different seasons and experiences. I served our nation in naval air combat operations. Later, I spent many years with GE in multifunctional leadership roles and various markets around the world, ultimately serving as a division Vice President and General Manager. I was subsequently recruited to lead several other companies, both public and private, and had the privilege of seeing those organizations reach their next level through going public or being acquired.

Along the way, I also served in Christian churches and organizations in a variety of roles.

At first, ministry was something I did on weekends or whenever time allowed. But eventually, something became increasingly clear to me: God was calling me to make serving Him a much greater focus of my life and my time.

And when I look back over all those years, I realize that God was using every one of those experiences.

The military taught me discipline, courage, responsibility, commitment, and something else I learned in a very personal way: the meaning of devotion and sacrifice.

Business taught me leadership, decision-making, accountability, perseverance, and the responsibility that comes with influencing the lives of other people.

Marriage and family taught me love, commitment, responsibility, and the privilege of investing in people God had entrusted to me.

And ministry taught me that leadership is ultimately not about position.

It is about responsibility for others.

One of the greatest blessings of my life was my wife, Ginny.

She was not simply my wife. She was my source of love, encouragement, strength, and inspiration. I loved her deeply.

When the Lord called her home several years ago, I experienced a loss that changed me forever.

Grief has a way of changing your perspective.

It reminds you that life is precious. It reminds you that time is not guaranteed. And it causes you to ask questions you might never have asked as deeply before.

For me, those questions became very personal:

Why am I here?

What am I supposed to do with the years God has given me?

Does my life really have a purpose?

And as I began looking back over my life, I started to understand something that has become one of the most important lessons of my life.

God's purpose for my life was not something I had to invent.

It was something He had already designed.

The Bible tells us in Ephesians 2:10 that we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand for us to do.

Think about that.

We are God's workmanship.

He created us intentionally.

He gave each of us particular abilities, experiences, relationships, opportunities, passions, burdens, and spiritual gifts. He allows us to experience seasons of success and seasons of difficulty. He uses our victories, our disappointments, our relationships, our failures, and even our wounds to shape us.

None of it has to be wasted when it is surrendered to Him.

Looking back over my own life, I can now see things I once considered unrelated that God was quietly using to prepare me for something I could not yet see.

Experiences became lessons.

Responsibilities became opportunities to lead.

Difficult seasons developed perseverance.

Relationships shaped my understanding of love and commitment.

Failures humbled me.

Successes taught me that achievement alone cannot satisfy the human heart.

And through it all, God was shaping and wiring me for His purposes — even when I had no idea what He was doing.

That, I believe, is one of the great challenges of life.

We often want to understand God's purpose before we are willing to trust His process.

But God rarely gives us the entire picture.

He gives us enough light for the next step.

And that brings me to why we are here.

What I want to share with you is not simply a personality exercise. It is not a career assessment. It is not a formula for finding personal success.

It is something much deeper.

I want us to explore how the spiritual gifts God has given you, your natural abilities, your personality, the passions of your heart, your relationships, your experiences, and even the painful things you have walked through may all be part of the way God has uniquely designed you.

Because your life is not a collection of unrelated events.

There may be a divine thread running through all of it.

And my hope is that, as we go through this together, you will begin to recognize that thread in your own life.

Perhaps you are young and trying to determine what direction your life should take.

Perhaps you are in the middle years, carrying the responsibilities of marriage, family, career, and leadership.

Perhaps you have achieved considerable success but are beginning to wonder what comes next.

Perhaps you have reached retirement and are asking whether your most useful years are behind you.

Or perhaps life has taken an unexpected turn — a loss, a failure, a career change, or some other circumstance that has caused you to stop and ask what really matters.

Wherever you are in your life cycle, I want you to consider one question:

"Lord, what do You want me to do with the life You have given me?"

That is the question at the heart of this journey.

Because I have come to believe that God does not waste a surrendered life.

He can take your talents and use them for His glory.

He can take your experiences and turn them into wisdom.

He can take your wounds and use them to help someone else.

He can take your failures and teach you humility.

He can take your successes and teach you stewardship.

And He can take whatever years remain and give them eternal significance.

So the question is not whether God has a purpose for your life.

The question is whether you are willing to discover it, trust Him with it, and live it.

That requires more than self-discovery.

It requires spiritual surrender.

The world asks, "What have you accomplished?"

God asks, "What have you done with what I entrusted to you?"

The world measures success by position, wealth, recognition, and visibility.

God measures faithfulness.

And that distinction becomes increasingly important as the years pass.

Purpose is not necessarily found in doing something spectacular.

Sometimes God's purpose is found in doing ordinary things faithfully — loving someone well, raising a child, encouraging a discouraged friend, serving your church, sharing the Gospel, mentoring a younger man, helping someone through a difficult season, or simply being faithful to God when no one else is watching.

We may never know the full impact of those acts of obedience.

But God does.

Our lives are not ultimately about us.

They are about Him.

Our gifts are His gifts.

Our opportunities are His entrustments.

Our time is His.

Our relationships are His.

Our resources are His.

And even our stories — with all their successes, failures, joys, and sorrows — can become instruments in His hands.

That is why I call this Designed for His Purpose.

It is an invitation to stop asking only, "What do I want to do with my life?" and begin asking, "Lord, what did You create me to do, and how can I faithfully use what You have given me for Your glory?"

My prayer is that, as we spend this time together, you will begin to look at your own life differently.

That you will look back and recognize God's fingerprints in places you previously overlooked.

That you will begin to understand how He has shaped you through your gifts, your experiences, your relationships, your successes, your failures, and the seasons through which He has brought you.

And most importantly, I pray that you will come to know more deeply the One who designed you.

Because ultimately, this journey is not about finding ourselves.

It is about finding ourselves in Him.

You were designed intentionally.

You were equipped uniquely.

You have been entrusted with a purpose.

And if God has given you another day, then He has given you another opportunity to live that day for Him.

So wherever you are in your journey, I want to leave you with this question:

What will you do with the life God designed for His purpose?

Because I believe this with all my heart:

God is not finished with you.

And He is not finished with me.

Whatever good has come from my life ultimately came from Him.

And whatever years remain, I want them to be used faithfully.

That is why I am here.

And that is why we are going to begin this journey together:

Designed for His Purpose.