Waiting for Purpose to Show Up

When was the last time you wondered whether your life would ever show significance? You thought you knew what you should be accomplishing, but you’re still waiting to for purpose to show up.

For some people, purpose seems to unfold before them with unbelievable ease. They know their calling and what they should do with it. Success not only comes when expected, it arrives in the very form they’ve imagined.

Then there are the rest of us.

We may know our calling, but not what it’s for or what it will look like when it’s fulfilled. We sit at a figurative bus stop, waiting for purpose to show up, with little idea what type of vehicle we should be watching for. We keep checking our watches because there’s no schedule at this depot. The big hand continues its steady tick forward as we wonder whether we’ve missed our connection altogether. Or failed to recognize a passing opportunity. Or made a transfer when we should have stayed on the same line.

Purposeful Waiting

Waiting to see meaningful results of our efforts in this world isn’t an irritation limited to a certain age group. It’s an equal opportunity discourager. The young itch to get started and chafe at each delay. Forty-year-olds wonder why they haven’t peaked yet. Sixty-year-olds ask when they’ll ever get “there.” Eighty-year-olds despair of purpose showing up before the hourglass drains of sand.

Oh, yes. We know waiting is biblical. Jesus waited four days to respond to Lazarus’ needs. Only when the old boy was dead and buried did his purpose materialize. Elizabeth longed for children all her long life. But God waited until she’d not only proven to be barren but too old to conceive before he brought her baby John. And Gideon? His purpose couldn’t be fulfilled until he was hopelessly outnumbered in battle.

It’s as though God enjoys proving purpose is impossible before he steps in to resurrect it.

When the Deadline Passes

Then there’s Abraham—arguably the father of all waiters. God described his purpose as engendering descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. Surely to do that he’d need to start procreating right away. But no.

Nearly a quarter of a century would pass before Abe’s purpose in life showed its first glimmer. It came only after Abraham was not only old but, according to Hebrews 11:12, as good as dead. Only after Sarah’s womb was well and truly dried up.

At last, however, Isaac arrived. Now the pumps were surely primed. There had to be more children. But there weren’t. Miraculous as Isaac’s birth was, the “father of nations” now had a grand total of one legitimate heir. One is a long way from “numerous as the stars.”

Oh well. Maybe Isaac would get the baby-birthing ball rolling. But first Abraham had to wait some more—decades, in fact—until his son grew to manhood and finally married. Now he’d surely see something happen. And he did. Isaac and Rebekah produced a whopping clutch of two grandchildren for him.

With that, Abraham’s time was up. Jacob didn’t produce his more promising batch of twelve boys and a girl until after Abraham died.

I think I would have been a bit disappointed by then. How about you? After waiting for purpose to show up all those years, he finished life with little to show for it.

When Purpose Doesn’t Seem to Show Up

What does Abraham’s experience tell us? That purpose may or may not show up? It might—if that was the end of Abe’s story. But it wasn’t.

In John 8:56, Jesus said Abraham rejoiced to see him arrive on the scene, implying Abraham was still watching his purpose unfold. In Matthew 2:32, Jesus confirmed it by reminding us God is not the God of the dead but the living.

Though Abraham’s body died, Abraham himself still lives. Accounted righteous by the Messiah, Abraham sits with him in the heavenlies to see the rest of his story play out.

We too, if we share Abraham’s faith in the Redeemer, can expect our purpose will continue to develop even after we leave this earth. In this life, we see only in part–an indistinct picture of reality. What little or much of our purpose we can see is nothing compared to its full and final effect. Our legacy continues to bloom in the generations who follow—whether spiritually or physically conceived. And we’ll have a ring-side seat from which to watch.

Paul spoke of the importance of the life to come in 1 Corinthians 15:19. “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable” (NKJV). Our hope in Christ is not just for our lives to be saved, but for the purpose for which he called us to be revealed.

As we’re waiting for purpose to show up, let’s expect to look beyond the here and now. Perhaps God is just proving once more that we were born to display the impossible working of God.

 “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58 NKJV).