Really.  Not trying to be melodramatic here.  Nor am I trying to lure you into a discussion that will end with questions like “why is the sky blue and the grass green?”  I really want to know if YOU know why you are alive.

I discovered very recently that I don’t have an answer to that question.

It was rather startling, actually.  Even shocking; a slap of ice-cold water in the face that leaves you gasping like a fish.  There are countless things I know about me.  Things I know God made me to do.  Things I like.  Things that make my spirit soar.  I know a whole lot more about my design that a lot of people twice my age know about theirs.  So you can only imagine how staggering it was to realize I had two critically different concepts all rolled into one.

What God showed me is the “why” for which you live is fundamentally different from the design through which you live.  Your God-given design is very important.  You need to know how God wired you and what He made you to do.  But for your design to reach its fullest and richest color, it must be fed by something outside of it.  You need to know WHY you are doing what you do, and that’s an entirely different matter. 

You see, for many years I have been trying to make areas of my design in themselves the reason for living.  They are not.  They are the playing fields.  Somewhere underneath there must be the foundational passion, the driving force, the thing that makes you get out of bed every morning, the flash of life God breathed into you from the very beginning.  It’s where you meet Him in what you do.

For one friend, their “why” is to help people be intentional in their lives.  No matter where this person goes or which playing field they are on, this drives them.  For another, it is revealing the colors of God’s wisdom.  For another it is articulating the creativity in another person and helping them achieve it.  Each of these friends has a unique design and ways in which they achieve their goals, and underneath it all is their God-given “why”. 

It is so very important not to mix the two!

Do you know your “why”?

If not, it’s time to find out!