God's Purpose For Me

Do you often ask yourself what you want out of life? What are your life goals?  What career you want to pursue?  I know I ask myself these questions all the time.  Well, the first day of The Purpose Driven Life turns these questions on their head.

It's not about me!!  The real question is, "What purpose does God have for me?"

What Purpose Does God Have For Me

Day 1 of The Purpose Driven Life showed me how self-centered I am.  I constantly think about ME - my purpose, my life, my choices.  But, the first Chapter of The Purpose Drive Life points out how unimportant these question are.

This first day was humbling for me.  Here, I have always viewed myself as a devout Christian, but I have never really asked God what His purpose is for me.  Here is what Warren says,

The purpose of life is far greater than your personal enjoyment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness.

Uh oh!!  I spend a lot of time thinking about what will make me happy!!

More than just being uncomfortable about my self-focus, when thinking about my life choices, it really puts a lot of pressure to think that I need to accomplish God's purpose for my life. Now, instead of just going through The Purpose Driven Life as a spiritual journey, it has now become a mandate.  If God has a PURPOSE for ME, then I need to learn what it is, and make sure that I dedicate my life to God's purpose for me.

What is my purpose in life?

The Purpose Driven Life promises that throughout its 40 day journey you will discover your life's purpose.  But, I have to remember that it is not about me,

If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God.  You were born by His purpose and for His purpose.

Success versus Accomplishing Life's Purpose

Another important point made in Day 1 is that being a success in life is not the same as accomplishing life's purpose.  I am an extremely driven person constantly striving to be a "success." I think that I put too much emphasis on being a success.

Point to Ponder

At the end of every chapter, Warren provides a point to ponder.  Day One's point is,

If there were no God, and everything was the result of random chance, there would be no purpose to your life.  It all starts with God.

I completely agree with this point.  If atheists are correct in there being no God, then I don't think you can find any real purpose to life.  If life is simply about your time on earth and then you die, life really is meaningless.

Scientists believe that as the universe expands, it will eventually kill all life.  Therefore, survival of the human race is destined to fail.  If God's promise of an everlasting kingdom with Him is not true, then does it really matter what we do with our lives?

Darwinian adherents will claim that we must act morally in order to survive.  But, if the scientists are right, it is a certainty that humans will not survive.  The universe will not survive. So, if the end of human civilization is likely, a natural instinct of survival is irrational.  We are not going to survive any way.

Warren begins his book with a quote from one of the 20th Century's most well known atheists, Bertrand Russell.  Russell said,

Unless you assume a God, the question of the purpose of life is meaningless.

I don't think that atheists actually believe that life has no purpose.  Most create man made purposes.  But if God does not exist, there is really no reason to live a certain way, to be moral, to care about others.

Well, Day 1 has given me a lot to think about.  What do you think about the above?  I would love to read your comments.

Related posts:

1. The Purpose Driven Life – My Journey Begins
2. God Created Me – The Purpose Driven Life – Day 2

This is the second part of my discussion on F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. As you can read in my first article in this series, F.A. Hayek: The Road to Serfdom, this book has had a profound impact on my life and beliefs.  I hope that you all enjoy this series.

Who was F.A. Hayek?

Before I get into discussing The Road to Serfdom, I thought that I better begin by giving a brief biography of F.A. Hayek.  Friedrich Hayek was an Austrian born economist and philosopher.  Most of Hayek’s works involved economic theory and many in the Austrian School of Economics claim him as one of their founders.

Hayek was born in 1899 and began writing The Road to Serfdom in 1940, a year after the start of World War II.  By 1940, Hayek was a British subject and was living in Great Britain.  After World War II, Hayek moved to the United States and was a professor at the University of Chicago.  Topping off Hayek's brilliant career, in 1974 he won the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Background on The Road to Serfdom

The Road to Serfdom sent shock waves around intelligentsia circles because Hayek claimed that socialism was just another form of communism and fascism.  More importantly, Hayek claimed that individual freedom could not be protected in a socialist society.

Most intellectuals during World War II described Fascism and National Socialism (Nazism) as a counter to capitalism.  But, Hayek argued that Fascism and Nazism was actually a continuation of socialism.

Before reading The Road to Serfdom, I had never heard this belief that fascism is an off-shoot of socialism.  Being a Russian studies major in college, I couldn't understand why I had never heard this theory before.  Instead, I was always taught that fascism and Nazism was a byproduct of capitalism.  But, every time I heard this concept, it just never seemed right to me.  Individual freedom is at the core of capitalism and it just never seemed right to me that capitalism could evolve into totalitarianism.  When I read Hayek's work, finally my beliefs were legitimized.

Another thing about The Road to Serfdom that fascinates me is that it was written during World War II.  It is great to read about socialism, communism and fascism from someone writing during the Second World War.  This is not someone reflecting on distant memories of the world at that time, but instead thoughts formed during the war.

I think that as this series continues, you too will be drawn into Hayek's writings.  Please subscribe to The Debt Hawk to make sure that you don't miss my next article in this series.

Related posts:

1. F.A. Hayek: The Road to Serfdom
2. Carnival of Pecuniary Delights #26 Is Up At Stupid Cents
3. God Created Me – The Purpose Driven Life – Day 2

In 1990 I had the privilege of traveling to the Soviet Union as a student ambassador representing the United States of America.  No other experience in my life had such a huge impact on my life.

Despite being only 15 years old at the time, seeing communism’s affect on people profoundly shook me to my core.  At 15 I was starting to think about what I wanted to be when I grew up and where I wanted to live.  But my adolescent Soviet peers did not have the freedom to choose an occupation or a place to live.  Their government made these decisions for them.

The Communist Party dictated what careers their subjects were to go into and where they could live based on what they believed was in the best interest of the collective good.  Each individual making up such collective was less important than the collective as a whole.

I just couldn’t believe that anyone could live in a society like that.  Just being there I felt stifled and oppressed.  But more than anything, I felt a deep sense of sadness for the Soviet teenagers I met and became friends with.  There were very few differences between us:  We were typical teenagers who wanted to make friends, have fun and learn about the world around us.  However, we were worlds apart in the opportunities that we had and freedoms that we possessed.

After spending a month in the Soviet Union, I returned home forever changed.  While I was too young to know the philosophical underpinnings of my beliefs versus the beliefs of socialists, I knew that individual liberty was a gift that was to be cherished and defended.

After graduating high school, I enrolled at The George Washington University as an International Affairs major.  I began studying the Russian language, history and culture.

Finally we are up to the point of this story that I can tell you about F.A. Hayek and his famous book, The Road to Serfdom.  During my sophomore year of college, I read Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom.  Like my earlier visit to the Soviet Union, this book intellectually changed me forever.

While at the age of 15 I knew that individual liberty was to be cherished, I could not articulate why.  F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom filled in all of these gaps for me.

Because of this effect, I decided that I should write an in depth review of this classic in political/economic thought.  So in the next few weeks I will discuss each chapter of this book.  I don’t want this just to be a book review:  I want it to allow me to clearly articulate why I believe that individual liberty is necessary for the good of humankind.

Many of you might be wondering what this has to do with personal finance and debt relief.  Well, my belief in individual liberty greatly influences my beliefs about personal finance.  Along with individual liberty comes individual responsibility.  People need to take control of their lives and finances.

The only person who can get you out of your debt mess is you.  And, luckily for Americans, the individual freedom that exists in our country allows anyone to change their lives.  Through disciplined personal finance anyone can live the American dream.  And the individualism of America allows that dream to be anything you want to make it.

So, I hope you enjoy this in depth discussion of The Road to Serfdom.  You can subscribe to my blog to make sure that you don’t miss any parts of this series.  Or, you can bookmark this article because I will be linking to each article in this series below.

Related posts:

1. Friedrich Hayek and the Importance of The Road to Serfdom