The Purpose-Driven Life

A purpose drive life is a life guided, controlled and directed by God’s purposes.  Nothing matters more than knowing God’s purposes for your life and nothing can compensate for not knowing them-not success, wealth, fame or pleasure.  Without purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without  direction and events without reason.  Without a purpose life is trivial, petty and pointless. – The Purpose-Driven Life, p. 30

A new year.  A fresh new start.  Another year filled with the promise of a clean slate.  Like many other people I like to start my year in a state of prayer and reflection.   I like to take inventory of my attitudes, achievements and actions of the past year.  This helps me know where I need to set my goals for the coming year.  This year, in addition to prayer I decided to start my new year by re-reading The Purpose-Driven Life by Pastor Rick Warren.  It is a great book to help get you re-focused on your God-given design.  It takes you on a 40 day journey of discovery to answer the age old question, “What on earth am I here for?”

Day 3 is a chapter entitled, “What Drives Your Life?”  In this chapter Warren states the 5 common emotions/values/attitudes that drive a person’s life are guilt, resentment and  anger, fear, need for approval and materialism.

According to Pastor Warren, guilt-driven people are manipulated by their past. They are driven by the regrets of their past.  Those driven by resentment and anger hold onto hurts and never get over them.  Fear-driven people miss great opportunities because they’re afraid to venture out.   If the whole goal of a person’s life is to acquire more things, they are driven by materialism.  Lastly, many of us are driven by approval.   Approval-driven people are controlled by the opinions and expectations of others.

For  many years of my life I was driven by a desire for approval.  So many times I’ve found myself  saying yes to people when asked to do things I didn’t want to do, because I didn’t want to be seen as a selfish person.   I also didn’t like to take risks for fear that I might fail.    If I failed, what would other people think of me?  Oh, my!   It’s unfortunate that sometimes we care more about what other people think of us than we do about the One who designed us.    For me there came a point in my life when I made a decision that if nothing around me changed, everything would be different if I changed.  One of the things I needed to change was to start living life on purpose.   I needed to live according to my purpose not other”s opinions or from a fear of failure.

Whatever drives your life, controls your decisions, your choices, your attitudes and your actions.  Who or what is in the driver seat of your life right now?  Are you driven by purpose -the desire to know and live  your life by God’s definition?   Or are you still allowing hurt, pain, fear, the opinions of others or insatiable appetite for more to remain in control?  Please, leave me a comment of where you are at on your journey.  What is 1 adjustment you can make today to live a more purpose-driven life?