Purpose

The story of Sisyphus

One of the famous Greek mythology is the legend of Sisyphus. If you remember your Greek mythology class Sisyphus was a king punished in Tartarus by being cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity. Reading about Sisyphus one can ask what is the purpose of life? Is it to labor just to roll a boulder on top of a hill and at its pinnacle see that same boulder that he worked so hard fall back to the bottom of the hill? Meaningless right? And this very word 'meaningless' echoed in one of the writings of Solomon, the wisest king who ever lived, in the book called Ecclesiastes. There Solomon wrote, Meaningless of meaninglessness! All is meaningless!". Even the wisest king who lived realized that by the end of the day we are just 'chasing the wind' if we pursue our own desires. So if you think that our purpose is to pursue our own happiness, our flesh, our own pride, our own ambitions, and our desires then there will come a time when like Sisyphus we are simply rolling boulders up and down the hill for nothing!

So what is the purpose of life? Rick Warren in his book, The Purpose Driven Life, wrote that people who does not know their purpose can either guess about their purpose or read their manual and from there learn about their purpose.

Did we came with a manual?

I am a Christian and I believe that the Bible is our manual for life. If you think otherwise then I will not debate you. I will simply ask you to try reading it and I pray that God, the Creator of the Heavens and Earth, will open your mind as He has opened mine to understand it.

In a nutshell...

So what is our purpose? Let me quote King Solomon's answer to this question,

"Fear God and keep his commandments,

for this is the whole duty of man."

Yes we are here to fear Him and to glorify Him. 'Is that all?", you ask? Yes that's all. You see outside of God, life has no meaning. But with Him there is wholeness, peace, and real joy.

To conclude

Maybe you are disappointed with my discussion on Purpose in this Vision, Passion, and Purpose series of posts. I could not blame you.:) This is a bit direct and I do not want to shove my faith on anyone. However I experienced life in an extraordinary way these past few days and I realized that living life without a definite purpose is a complete waste of time and energy. I have lived my life for myself and you know what I realized how meaningless it was. I have worked my butt off and by the end of the day I experienced what Solomon calls 'chasing the wind'. I did not felt any satisfaction. I was achieving some results but the bottom-line is that I feel so out of place. At the pinnacle of every challenge I will simply roll by boulder down the hill and watch it as it reaches the bottom. But amidst it all I still heard a still small voice asking me to pray for sight although I thought I was not blind. I prayed that I may see what I may have missed in life and like the blind man that Jesus healed I could say that all I know is that I was blind and now I see. I see clearly that life's purpose is worship and I want to spend it worshiping my God. Once I got my sight and learn my purpose it is easy to be passionate. Indeed Vision, Passion, and Purpose goes hand in hand.

God bless you,

Joseph