If life feels too small for your soul, you're not broken. You're being called into something real and lasting.
You know that three seconds of black quiet between your head hitting the pillow and sleep finally taking you. The silence found in that space—that hollow, echoing space—where the question whispers up from the deeps of you: Is this all there is?
Mind you, this is not a scream of crisis. It’s quieter than that, more insidious. It’s the dull ache of a life that feels like it’s being lived on the wrong frequency. You’re going through the motions, checking the boxes, but something is missing.
And you wonder, if you were to peel back all the layers of expectation—what your job says, what your family needs, what society applauds—would you find anything underneath that feels like it’s truly, irrevocably you? Would you find a purpose?
Well, I need you to understand it this way: that feeling isn’t a sign that you’re failing; rather, it’s a sign you’re listening.
But How Could a Grand Plan Feel So Small?
I’ve been there and I lately understood that we’ve got the whole thing backwards. We’re looking for the burning bush, the Damascus road, and the sky to crack open with a divine job description etched in lightning. We wait for the spectacular, the undeniable, and the purpose that arrives with a trumpet fanfare.
And because our Tuesdays are mostly made of packed lunches, traffic jams, and overflowing laundry baskets, we assume God’s purpose must be for someone else. Someone more spiritual, more talented, less… tired.
Even as Christians we often forget that the God of the universe, the one who spoke galaxies into being, often works in a silent whisper. He showed up to Elijah not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, but in a “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12). The original Hebrew text is even more intimate—it’s a voice of “sheer silence.”
You see that longing, that ache for something more? That is the whisper. It is the first, most practical step. It is the divine discontent meant to stir you from slumber. It is God’s gracious hand shaking your shoulder, not to scold you for being asleep, but to invite you to wake up to what He’s already doing right there in your quiet bedroom.
God’s purpose isn’t a destination you arrive at; it’s a lens you learn to see through.
Why We Think That Purpose is a Prize to Unlock
We’ve been sold a bill of goods. The world—and sadly, much of the modern faith industry—tells us that purpose is a complex puzzle to be solved, a hidden treasure map we must decipher. We treat it like a cosmic scavenger hunt, frantically looking for signs and wonders, hoping the next conference, the next book, or the next podcast will give us the missing piece.
This quest leaves us frantic. Exhausted. Always looking for the next clue, and we miss the text written right in front of us.
The apostle Paul, a man who knew a thing or two about a dramatic calling, said something that should stop us in our tracks. He wrote to a group of ordinary people trying to figure it out, just like us, and he said in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
Let’s unpack that. Workmanship. In Greek, it’s poiēma. It’s where we get our word “poem.” This simply means that you and I are God’s poetry. His artwork. We are not a product off an assembly line, but a unique, intentional, crafted piece of art.
And those “good works”? They aren’t a list of duties He’s waiting for you to find. They are a path He prepared in advance for us to walk in. The purpose we seek is in the walking. It’s in the rhythm of your daily steps. The calling isn’t to a specific role but to a specific way of being—a walking, living, breathing poem of grace—in whatever role you find yourself.
The pressure we experience isn’t from God. It’s from us. We’ve mistaken the spotlight for the purpose. But purpose was never about the size of the stage. It’s about the quality of the love offered upon it.
So What Does This Purpose Actually Look Like?
If purpose is a lens and not a location, how do we put those glasses on? How do we start seeing the "good works" prepared for us today, not someday?
It begins with a shift in attention. We must stop looking for the grand plan and start looking for the next right thing. The next kind thing. The next true thing.
First, Audit Your Awe. What makes you feel most alive? When does time fall away for you? I’m not talking about zoning out in front of a screen. I’m talking about the activity where your deepest skills and your deepest joys intersect. For one person, it’s organizing a chaotic closet into a thing of beauty and order. For another, it’s patiently explaining a complex idea to a child until you see the lightbulb click on. For another, it’s the physical exhaustion of building something with their hands.
That feeling right there? That’s a clue. God wired you with certain proclivities, passions, and yes, even pains. He uses what is already there. Your purpose isn’t about becoming a completely different person; it’s about becoming the most full version of the person He already made.
Second, Follow the Fragrance of Love. This is the simplest, most profound filter for every decision, big and small: What is the most loving thing I can do here? Not the most impressive. Not the most profitable. The most loving.
This is what Jesus reduced the entire law and the prophets to: loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself. Purpose is found in the active application of love. Purpose is choosing patience with the barista who got your order wrong. It’s sending the text to the friend you know is struggling. It’s listening—really listening—to your child’s endless story about their video game. It’s doing the dishes without complaint.
These are not small things. These are the “good works” prepared for you. They are the very atoms of a life of purpose. When you do them with the conscious intention of loving God and loving others, you are not just completing a task. You are executing your divine assignment.
Third, Embrace Your “Station.” The Puritan preacher William Perkins had a beautiful term for this. He spoke of finding our “particular calling” within our “general calling” to godliness. Your particular calling is your station in life—your place in your family, your community, and your job right now.
Your purpose isn’t waiting for you on the other side of a promotion, a move, or a marital status change. It is embedded in the raw material of your current reality. The frustrations, the limitations, the people right in front of you—this is not the obstacle to your purpose. This is the field where your purpose is to be sown and grown.
And if you are a parent, your purpose is the relentless, patient, creative nurturing of those tiny souls. If you are a friend, your purpose is the ministry of presence and loyalty. If you are a cashier, your purpose is to be a moment of grace and human connection in a dozen anonymous transactions a day.
Stop waiting for a new station. Start serving faithfully in the one you’re in.
What About the Fear That I’ve Already Missed It?
This is the ghost that haunts so many of us. The fear that we took a wrong turn ten years ago, that we chose the wrong major, married the wrong person, and settled for the wrong job. That the ship of our true purpose has sailed, and we’re left watching it disappear on the horizon.
It’s a lie. A brutal, crushing lie.
The God we serve is the master of redemption. He is the expert at writing straight with crooked lines. Your past, with all its missteps and regrets, is not a chain that locks you out of purpose. In His hands, it becomes the very key that unlocks a unique empathy, a specific wisdom, and a profound ability to minister to others who are lost on the same path you once walked.
Look at the disciples. They were a collection of wrong turns and missed points. They argued about who was greatest while Jesus was talking about His death. They fell asleep when He asked them to pray. They denied Him and fled when He was arrested. Talk about missing the point.
And yet these were the men upon whom He built His church. Their failures became the classrooms where they learned the depths of grace. Their weakness became the platform for His strength.
You have not missed it. You are exactly where you need to be to take the next faithful step.
And What If the Next Faithful Step Feels Like a Risk?
It might. Stepping into the fullness of who you are meant to be will always require a degree of courage. It will mean setting boundaries. It might mean having a hard conversation. It could mean starting that thing you’ve been dreaming about, even if it’s small and no one else understands.
But this is where the whisper becomes a promise. This is where we lean on the truth that has carried millions before us: Hebrews 13:5, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
You are not stepping out alone. You are stepping out with the One who ordained your path. The risk is not yours to carry alone. The outcome is not yours to secure. Your job is obedience. The results are from His department.
Purpose is found not in the absence of fear, but in the decision to walk forward with it. To say, "I am afraid, but I am more afraid of a life lived in the shadow of what could have been."
So Where Do We Land?
We land right where we started. In the quiet. In the darkness before sleep.
But perhaps now, that silence feels different. It’s no longer a hollow echo of a question but a fertile ground for an answer. The ache is not a wound; it is a compass.
Now you know, God’s purpose for your life is not a riddle to be solved. It is a relationship to be lived. It is the daily, practical, gritty choice to love the people in front of you with the skills He has given you.
You don’t need to find your purpose. You need to live it. Today. In the next conversation. The next kind act. The next moment you choose faith over fear.
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Jacob Wackerhausen
