The Enneagram Couldn’t Answer This Question I Had About Myself…

I have taken a multitude of personality and strength locator tests over the years in an attempt to better understand how I think, what type of career I am best suited for, and in general how to be more successful.

These types of assessments can be very helpful in understanding how to work better with others, but they didn’t help me with the one question I was craving to have answered: Why am I here? It’s a question I expect everyone has asked at one time or another, and perhaps you are asking it today.

When I graduated from college in December 1986, I began the process of looking for a professional job. I was interviewing for a sales job in a check printing company out of Shoreview, Minnesota. It would entail calling on banks throughout Minnesota and the Dakotas. I really wanted this job and had made it through multiple interviews. The last step in the interview process was to take a personality test to ensure I was a good fit. Taking the test was a fearful experience. I was going to pass or fail the job interview process based on my test results. 

I wish I could tell you I passed with flying colors and got the job, but it was just the opposite. I received a rejection letter in the mail shortly after I had taken the test. I was devastated.

I had based my self-worth and identity on a foundation of being liked and accepted. When you do that, fear, failure and rejection are around every corner. I didn’t have a solid foundation in Christ Jesus or my identity in Him. This experience revealed that my identity was built on shifting sand. I look back now, realizing I was so full of fear and anxiety, it probably came through loud and clear in the assessment. Unlocking your purpose begins with developing an intimate relationship with the Lord and establishing your identity in Him.

Let me reassure you. We all have a unique purpose, designed by God, and I am dedicated to helping you discover and develop that God-given purpose in order to achieve your full potential. That said, we also share a common purpose as sons and daughters of God, which is the foundation for unlocking your unique purpose and unleashing your destiny.

Where do we begin? The starting point for understanding the purpose for your life is to have a heart-to-heart connection and relationship with God. In that relationship, you will learn to understand the real you, based on who you are in Jesus. Your particular purpose is revealed and realized in your personal relationship with God. Everything springboards from there, and in this wonderful discovery process you will experience an amazing adventure with Him. We will take a closer look at our relational foundation to understand how it is that we, together with God, discover and walk out our purpose and destiny.

 I only ever knew myself based on others’ opinions and through a lens of my past mistakes. I didn’t know the real Karen based on what Jesus had done for me or through the lens in which He sees me. You see, the Holy Spirit guides you into truth so you can remove the restraining boundaries of yourself and open the doors to experience your best possible life. I hope you are gathering the principles and tools needed to unleash your destiny based on your heart-to-heart connection with God. His greatest desire is you! 

How do you develop this kind of relationship? I had been taught to spend time in my “prayer closet,” which, to be candid, did not sound very appealing to me. Who wants to spend time in a closet? Is that where I have to go to communicate with God? If so, I wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible! But as I began to spend my mornings in the front room of my home, praying, studying the Word, and talking with God as if He was sitting on the couch with me, I quickly discovered how funny, adventurous, and personal God is. Once I let go of the religious ideas I had about praying and spending time with God and became aware that He is in me and with me, I felt as though I had a new best friend!

While reading one day, I noticed the apostle Paul, who I consider a superstar in ministry, said this in Philippians 3:10, “[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection” (AMPC). Paul could have said so many things, such as, “My purpose is to write most of the New Testament or to preach to thousands.” But he didn’t say any of that. He said his determined purpose was to know God, and as a result he would come to know the power flowing from His resurrection. That rocked my world.

Paul recognized that his determined purpose in life was to know God personally and intimately, which is the foundational purpose in all our lives. With that as a foundation, he went on to accomplish amazing things through his own unique purpose, but he knew how to keep the main thing the main thing. You and I can learn from Paul. Your relationship with the Lord is the most important part of fulfilling your purpose and destiny.

Jesus demonstrated this well while on earth. He was presence driven and purpose shaped. Your priority is to have an intimate relationship with God, and out of that comes your life’s accomplishments. Jesus revealed this in John 17:3-4, in the conversation He had with His Father a short time before He was arrested and taken into custody by Roman soldiers. He said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do” (NKJV). When Jesus said, “this is eternal life,” the statement that follows is very important. He said that eternal life is knowing God.

There are two words in the verse, translated from the Greek language, that provide further understanding. The word life is zoe, and it means “the quality of life that is possessed by the one who gives it.” Jesus is offering to everyone the same quality of life He enjoys with the heavenly Father, which includes the same love, closeness, acceptance, anointing, authority, and so forth. He referenced this same word, life, earlier in John 10:10: “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (NKJV). Jesus is making the same quality of life He has available to you in abundance.

Jesus gives generously and without limitations. An example of this is the statement He made in John 7:37-38, that if we come to Him and drink, out of our heart would flow rivers of living water. This a multiplication—you drink in His presence, and He multiples it into rivers of living water flowing out of you. Hearing from Him positions you to live the life He intends. Paul says in Galatians 5:25, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (KJV).

The word live is a verb that comes from the word zoe.

 The word walk means “to line up or proceed in a row.” You can believe you have the life of God in you and have already become what God wants you to be. All you need to do is cooperate with God’s power already resident in you and activate it by simple faith or belief.

The second word from John 17:3 to understand is the word know. This word means “experience.” God is all about relationships! The Bible can be summarized in the following sentence: The Father wants a family, Jesus wants a bride, the Holy Spirit wants a temple, or a person. God uses terms like family, children, heirs, brother, friend, and so forth throughout the Word. Another way to summarize God’s intention is to say that He loves you into a place of abundant life where you are fully experiencing His love; then He wants you to give it away.

Love means to value, hold in high regard, and consider precious. You are designed by God to feel and experience His love for you! As a result of doing so, your self-worth and identity are transformed. When you experience His love, it impacts your trust in God. In a love environment, faith works. Therefore, the more you experience His love, the more faith—belief and trust—you can walk in.

Another benefit of experiencing God’s love is being able to love others. God’s love teaches you how to treat others in a manner key to your ability to walk out your purpose. Purpose is a proportionate mixture of what you do and how you do it. Purpose demonstrated in the context of character and love produces a reputation that Proverbs 22:1 describes as better than “great riches” (ESV).

I have experienced challenging circumstances with people doing and saying hurtful things while I was actively flowing in my purpose. I’m sure you can relate to having emotions rising up and all sorts of thoughts swirling about. When you lean in to the trust you have developed, you can grab hold of those emotions before you say or do something you may regret. In the moment, you might want to defend yourself or even give someone a piece of your mind. But if you pause and talk with God at His throne of grace, you’ll find mercy and grace to love, honor, and bless that person.

You can receive love from God freely and without limitation, and it’s not something you need to manufacture. Romans 5:5 says that God’s love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And Jesus said that love is the number-one way His followers will be recognized. First Corinthians 13 goes so far as saying that without love, everything else is meaningless.

In John 17:4, Jesus completes His thoughts about experiencing God. He said, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (ESV). You operate out of a relationship with God, and your life, activities, and work are reflections of God. You bring Him glory in the way you conduct yourself and by accomplishing what He gives you to do. Actively experiencing God and being shaped by Him are the keys to being able to withstand turbulence in your life. Jesus spoke about this in Luke 6:47-48: “Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built” (ESV).

There is a heavenly blueprint for your life, and in your experience with Jesus you can hear His words and understand what your purpose is and how to walk it out. In life, you may experience overwhelming circumstances, forcefully attempting to bring destruction to your life and purpose, but according to God’s Word you cannot be shaken. Your life is well built and structured upon God’s strength and not your own works.

In verse 49, those who experience God but don’t act upon His words subject themselves to a life susceptible to disappointment and even destruction. “But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great” (Luke 6:49, ESV).

Your relationship is a love journey—a lifetime of discovery—where you come to know who God is, who you are, and how to accomplish what He wants you to achieve. I promise you, His plan for your life is better than anything you could imagine on your own, so get prepared to dream big with God.