Purpose as Children of God

I have been thinking about what it means to be a Christian and what I am called to do, who I am called to be, in light of my belief that I am a child of God. Actually, I’ve been thinking about this in different ways quite a bit…for awhile now. And after all my thinking and questioning, and pondering, for the most part, I can only “live the questions” as I persist with an awareness of far fewer “answers.” I thought I might pass along some of the questions I’ve stumbled upon so far:

If God is our creator and life-giver, to truly give us “life,” wouldn’t He give us some purpose as well? Isn’t having some purpose a necessary component of what it means to “live?” Moreover, as children of God, wouldn’t you think our lives would be even more closely related to some purpose? He wouldn’t just make us and say, “Well, sorry kids, batteries ‘not included,’ figure it out and come up with some purpose on your own.” Would he? I really don’t know. Maybe to some extent, we are supposed to figure things out on our own, including our purpose, or some “personalized” portion of our purpose at least.

Now, there is Genesis, where God gives us dominion over all other life on earth, but if that is to be interpreted as purpose for us, is it our only purpose? Do we have purpose beyond this call? Should we, perhaps instead, ask what all is entailed in the great call to be stewards of earth and its other inhabitants? What about our role in the context of each other and community? What about our purpose not just as individuals, but as a society, a people?

Some of you may be recalling the words of Micah 6—thoughts on what this means?

Any other thoughts?

- Patrick Garvin