The good news is we aren't in charge of making sure our life has puprose. That's God's responsibility, and He doesn't fail. The part that seems like bad news, is that if we desire to follow Jesus it will certain involve suffering. Even though your suffering feels beyond your ability to endure, Jesus is only preparing the maximal happiness of those who trust in Him for their satisfaction. He calls us to suffer the cross along with Him, so that we can be dying people who reach the dying with a message of life and reconciliation to God.
Anytime we think of what God's purpose for our lives is, we think in terms of a great career, a beautiful wife and kids, and an influencial ministry.
We aren't really thinking in terms of death. That's not how our minds function. In this whole process, when I was in the thick of my suffering, when I didn't want to endure one more day--I had to finally accept the sentence of death on my life. Death to my hopes and plans that I didn't know I so desperately cared about until they were crushed. I finally accepted the cross of suffering as a part of the cross of salvation.
We can accept this sentence because we know that Jesus has endured a cross that we will never have to: absorbing the wrath of our Father. But it is for those who hate even their own lives, that is, all those things you feel you need to have purpose in this world. To reject them as foundational to living, happiness, and hope.
I wish only the very best for you; which will include suffering; how much? That's your Father's call.
2Co 1:8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For
we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we
despaired of life itself. [they didn't want to live anymore]
2Co 1:9 Indeed, we
felt that we had received the sentence of death. But
that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
["That was to make us" is a purpose clause; that kind of suffering came from God's hand
on purpose,
for a purpose]
2Co 4:16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
2Co 4:17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
2Co 4:18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
["light and momentary affliction" is written by the guy that said a few chapters earlier that his suffering was so bad he wanted to die]
Luk 14:25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them,
Luk 14:26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Luk 14:27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
Php 3:7 But whatever
gain I had, I counted as
loss for the sake of Christ.
Php 3:8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake
I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
Php 3:9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
Php 3:10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may
share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
Php 3:11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Php 1:21 For to me to live is Christ, and
to die is gain.
[words in brackets are my own and not in original text. Underline for emphasis added by myself]
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