Finding God's Purpose for Your Life

If you know your why, you'll find your way in life. If you don't know your why, everything else is in the way.

But if you know your why, somehow those mountains don't appear to be as big as they were. That's Ken Costa sharing an insight about finding God's will and purpose for your life. Welcome to another program. This is Focus on the Family with your host, Focus President and author, Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, and Ken is going to help us find that purpose and meaning that every one of us longs for in our spiritual journey, in our work, and in our life together as a family. John, there are those who feel like they've hit their sweet spot, maybe in all those categories they feel fulfilled in every way.

Things are going well, and for whatever reason it's working out well for you, and congratulations. There are many, many others, though, who aren't sure. They're not quite sure what the Lord wants them to do.

They're struggling. I'm thinking of the twenty, thirty-somethings that aren't aware of what God would like to do with their lives, and they're waiting. Today we do want to discuss how you hear from the Lord, how you think and prepare so that you're ready for that call.

How do we know when that call comes? Those are big questions, and we're going to tackle those today on Focus on the Family. Yeah, and Ken is here to speak about that. He's an investment banker. He's been doing that for more than forty years, but he's invested in far more valuable things than the financial world.

He speaks into the lives of young people about building God's kingdom, and he's written a book called Know Your Why—that's W-H-Y—Know Your Why, Finding and Fulfilling Your Calling in Life. Ken, welcome to Focus on the Family. Thank you. It's great to be here, to be with you. Now you have that wonderful British accent, so you're residing in London. I don't think I've got the accent.

Okay, touche. Welcome. Welcome to America. We love America.

And we're grateful for that. Let me ask you, I saw the title Know Your Why, and my first thought is, what is my why? We're getting into the where and why stuff, but what is my why? What do you mean by the word why? What I mean by the word why is that deep, inner conviction that the Spirit of God puts upon the people of God that they matter to God in all aspects of life, not just in the church aspect.

And that's what I really mean. There is a spirit that's working long before people try and say, well, how will I serve God? Where will I serve God? When will I serve God?

How long, oh Lord? But unless you tackle the why question, that there is a purpose to your life, those others become much more difficult to answer. Why do you think we separate those attributes, our vocation, our spiritual walk, our family? Why do we struggle integrating those under a faith umbrella?

Well, that's such a good question. I'll tell you why I think it is. I think that the world that we're living in is a very siloed world, very atomized.

It's trying to divide us into different parts. This is your family life. This is your work life. This is your spiritual life.

This is your school life. This is where nothing holds together. But Paul writes into the Colossians, he says, in Christ Jesus, all things hold together. And that's the great thing we have is to be able to pull them together in Christ Jesus. For that person that's going to church but waking up on Monday, maybe in the business world, you spent 40 years in banking, you can live a bifurcated life. How does a person take the assessment to say, okay, something is not right. I'm not integrating my faith.

What does that look like? Well, what it looks like is you have to have one thing in mind when you go to work that my workstation is my worship station. If your workstation and your worship station run together, you're going to live an integrated life. If you've split the two up, you'll just screw yourself up mentally, physically, emotionally. You'll try and be hard at work, competitive from Monday to Friday. And then the kind dad, father to the kids, good husband, well-relaxed at the weekend, it doesn't work. So for you in the banking business, Ken, were there moments where you acted out of character, the stress of competing for that big contract?

Sure. How did you manage that as a Christian man? Well, we fail from time to time. We don't get it right. The Christian life isn't the calling to be perfect.

But I know this. People often say to me, well, does it make you a better banker because you're a Christian? The answer is no, but it makes me a better Ken as a banker and better able to cope with the hardship, the harsh commercial compromises of the world in which we're living. We're not living in some neutral place. We're living in a place which is tough. I didn't have to tell any of your listeners about stress.

And they don't have to tell me because I know about it and they know about it and you know about it. And stress is a 24-7 phenomenon. And we need to learn to be able to cope with that. And I believe that the power of the Spirit of God enables us to be able to deal with this continuing stress that we're living in and to find a way in which we can live well in the modern world. So how did you find your why and how is it defined?

Well, it changes over a period of time. You need to find your calling. Some of us work for cash. Nothing wrong with that. I've worked for cash. Some work for a career. Nothing wrong with that.

I've done that. Some work for a great cause, a great voluntary organization or not-for-profit as this one is. But if you don't work for a calling, if you don't know your calling, you will burn out. So it's very important to get to a stage where you have that deep inner sense that Jesus Christ has called me specifically into a task that he has given me to do.

And for me, to come to the question, it was to be a good banker and a good husband and father I hope as well, but also to have a twin track of working in the voluntary world as well for the church and in small connect groups and writing books and preaching and teaching. But above everything else, it is that in Christ Jesus, all things hold together. Ken, let me ask you, the reason we kind of shortchange ourselves when it comes to vocation, oftentimes when I'm meeting with the folks who support this ministry, sometimes they'll feel, I don't know, maybe that they're not as significant because they're not working directly in ministry, but they're doing banking, they're doing oil and gas, they're doing real estate, they're doing these vocational things that for them in their own self-perception isn't as credible. That's not the way to look at this, is it?

No, it's not. The sad thing is, of course, what happens is that the pastors in the church, for no reason that I could blame them because they're not trained that way, will think of the business community as a good milk's cow, get some money out of them to keep the whole show running. The best pastors say, look, how can we invest in you to recognize that there is one indivisible Lord? The Lord of the money markets is the Lord of mercy, the Lord of profit is the Lord of prayer, the Lord of competition is the Lord of compassion. There is one indivisible God. We can't divide him up and say, oh, well, you go off to do filthy stuff at work and we'll do clean stuff in the church.

Not at all. We all work together and we need to help each other to find our callings in life. I remember making a thank you call for a gift here, Focus, and the donor couple on the other and the husband said, you know, my wife and I appreciate the fact that you run Focus effectively and efficiently for us to do ministry through you.

And at first I went, what? But he's absolutely right. My goal is to run Focus as effectively and efficiently as possible so that people can support the ministry and do ministry through us. Yeah, and a great steward. I love that concept. That puts, that gets it all together, that the person out doing the vocational thing, earning a living and supporting their church, supporting ministries like Focus. And it honors that person as well. It honors the giver.

It doesn't sort of deal it as, you know, you're a second class citizen, you know, I've given my money to a good person, a good organization to steward it well. And Ken, it comes down to what do you advise somebody in their 20s that wants to, I mean, they're passionate about following God. Calling and career feel kind of separate to them.

How do they, this is really a stress point for a couple of my kids. And for generations throughout the world, and I've been traveling all throughout the world, it is exactly the same. And here's the issue. Never before have we had an aging population that is going to grow much older, while young people have got so much choice that they're totally overwhelmed by the choices. We live in a multi-choice world. And whereas I, you know, to look back on my career where I had my two or maybe three jobs, there is nobody in that millennial group that will not have six, 10, 12 different jobs. One job will start as an entrepreneur and you'll pivot into something else. How is it that you can then, and this is what we need to help people to do, to focus on your calling now to be fully committed to what you're doing now, believing that that's where the Lord has got you to be, whilst at the same time keeping an openness to the Spirit leading you to the next. Now the difficulty for the generation is there's a constant expectation of FOMO, the fear of missing out.

I'm going to miss out unless I grab the next opportunity and rob yourself of enjoying what God has given you to enjoy and to work at in your calling, in your groove, right now. What are those practical steps as you're looking for your calling? How do you map something out to say step one, step two? Is it that analytical? It is in part analytical because it's very biblical. And the Bible is full of very good advice, all of which is recorded in the wonderful book.

But let me give you a quick summary of it. First thing to do is to consider well. Just consider what the opportunity is. Second, consult with other people who are around you, got skin in your game, who are actually going for you. Third, clarify the issue. Tweet it to yourself. 140 characters.

I'm facing a job change. 140 characters. What is the real question? Because so often we forget what the question is and muddle ourselves up. And fourth, you need courage. The courage to make a decision once you've clarified it. And in my experience, particularly for younger people, they've clarified it, just haven't got the courage to take on to the next step. And this great biblical precedent, can't go into them all, for us being able to be courageous.

Fear not, says Jesus, I've overcome the world. It's this constant tension between preparation, planning, and trusting. And I think that's something that is, we hold that in a certain tension, don't we? Well, we hold it in a tension, but it's not an unresolved tension. In other words, if you keep holding things like that in tension, you're going to do your head in because you just can't cope with it. It's holding them together on the basis that not everything is disclosed to us immediately.

There are waiting periods. Jesus is not going to give you the answer. God isn't Google.

You can't get my why by Googling it. Because there is a time of seeping, of preparation, of actually preparing beforehand. And then those tensions, once given to God, surrendered to him, actually become things that we can live with rather than stuff that just eats us up.

I can't resolve it now and just eats at you. What about that situation where you're ping-ponging? And I'm thinking of someone I know who has vacillated between finishing seminary, bouncing back into business. And to me as an observer, it's more the waning of passion in between these two destinations. So he'll do business for two or three years and then feel unfulfilled and then want to jump back into direct ministry, become a pastor, become a missionary. Then that wanes and then they want to jump. And I think a lot of young people are in that spot where they're kind of vibrating between directions.

What do you do for that? What you do is you've got to take control of your destiny. It is true that Jesus Christ is our leader and shows us the way. But he also expects us to take control of our hearts, our minds, our imaginations and not just to be knocked from one side to another. So there is a responsibility that rests in taking control of your direction rather than being pushed about by whatever the sort of current mood or the current feelings might be in a particular workplace or in a church and then just drift and if it doesn't work out, I'll go traveling. I can remember even before coming to focus on the family, I was working in business.

I studied my last year at Waseda University in Japan. I was totally geared toward doing international business and I felt pretty confident the Lord was calling me into that and I had an interest in it. I had a desire and then over a short period of time, probably four or five years, I was probably 28, I got a phone call with focus and they asked if I'd be interested in coming to work here. And I can remember talking to this person and they were in the business world but had retired and moved into ministry. And I remember him coaching me to say, we need good Christian representation in the business world.

I would cautiously consider that move but I would encourage you to stay in the business world. Now obviously I made a different decision but that kind of sound wisdom was helpful to me to even sort out the final decision that I made. How critical is that kind of input from a friend or a mentor? And then secondly, does God care where I end up or that I'm serving Him where I end? I think God is much more interested in the way in which we approach Him than where we end up. If faith were knowledge, it wouldn't be faith. The element of trust is the element of uncertainty.

I don't know how the cards are going to fall, I don't know what's going to be there next. I have to trust Him that the decision that I make is the best decision I could have made in the circumstances that were at the time provided I have been studying the Bible, I prayed with others, I prayed by myself, I've written down the issues that are faced one way or the other, I've used my mind, my heart, my imagination. So often people say, well, I'm waiting for God to show me the way.

Well, in my experience, He doesn't act like that. If He did, why would He have given us hearts and minds and imaginations and strengths and weaknesses and experience? I like this idea of being prepared no matter where God plants you. Get up every day thinking, Lord, here I am, what can I do? And then you apply yourself in that regard, whether you're a baker, a missionary, you just go to work every day working on His behalf.

That is absolutely true. And I'd add one little thing to it. There are three things that I think makes a huge difference, and that's this, is that in that process, you need to know that you're loved by God, that you're known by God, and that you're called by God. If you hold those three things together, being loved, being known, and being called, it makes a huge difference. It sets you free to enjoy the day as it unfolds. And, Ken, I so appreciate what you're saying right there. I'll reference my kids and their friends. There is some fear that they know God loves them, and they know that He's for them, but they have this fear that they're going to miss the call. And I didn't grow up with that call thing.

What is that, and how is it different than a career, or how does that relate to the why of the book? So the first bit is to remember the words of Jesus. You haven't chosen me. I have chosen you. And I've chosen you with a particular purpose, John 15, when He says, I've invested in you. I've made an investment in you so that you might go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. So that anxiety of missing suggests that I've got to be the one to make a whole make my choice, and if I don't make that choice, I'm going to get it wrong.

But it's the other way around. God has Himself in Christ called us. He has said, I will show you the way. What we need to do is to follow. If we follow Him, we will face Him in the way in which those first two disciples faced Him in the early parts of John's Gospel, when Jesus turns to them and says to them, what do you want?

What do you want? And John won. And he knew that they were following. The moment he saw they were following, he could ask the question, what do you want? And that's a question I would say to your children and to mine and to anyone listening. He's listening.

What do you want? If we submit to Him, we begin to know our why. And here is the piece that I found so helpful. If you know your why, you'll find your way in life. If you don't know your why, everything else is in the way. You stumble over it. The mountains are too big.

The finances are too strong. I don't have the background, the education, the training. I could never reach this goal. It's not for me.

It overwhelms you. But if you know your why, somehow those mountains don't appear to be as big as they were. You know, as I hear you give those explanations or excuses, it sounds a bit like Moses.

When you look at the life of Moses, do you think he discovered his why after telling God why he wasn't the guy? I mean, if you remember, he said, I can't go speak to Pharaoh. I stutter. I can't do this.

I'm not that good at it. We do that a lot with the Lord, don't we? Well, we do because at the end of the day, we think we can perfect the deal that he's given us.

We think we know better than he does. But the patience with which God dealt with Moses is the thing that I love so much. Okay, I'll give you Aaron. I will bring someone alongside you. And in the New Testament, I will bring the Holy Spirit to come alongside. He's going to help you. We're not alone in this quest.

That is so good. You know, one of the things, too, as a young person particularly, and again, we're trying to speak on your behalf, the 2030-somethings. Although these are really great principles that apply to everyone else. Absolutely. But hopefully, after you move through your 30s, you kind of have some of this figured out, I hope, but not necessarily. Yeah, because life changes.

Correct. You know, there are different—we have to recognize that there are stages in life. There are seasons in life, particularly in the modern world. There are seasons in which we will be working for ourselves, working for someone else, working in a voluntary organization, looking for second and other careers. It used to be something one thought of as a second career.

Well, now it's the sixth or seventh. But there are seasons, and we need to discern the seasons and be strong and happy in those seasons. So in that regard, for that, again, 2030-something who is trying to discern, is this a point along a continuum that I've got to find with God, this is exactly what he wants me to do, versus maybe the fear that I'll miss it?

You know, that somehow I'm not going to find the point at which he wants me to engage? How do you address those kind of fears and apprehensions? If faith were knowledge, it wouldn't be faith. You have to live with risk. And the risk is faith. It's the trust that if I'm learning and hearing, then I'm going to be able to follow him.

And here's the issue. How do you hear God's voice in a noisy world? And we are very noisy. Our smartphones tell us where we are, what music we listen to, what type of people we are.

It's on all the time. And it's noisy. If you want to hear God's voice in a noisy world, you have to take a step to cut some of that noise out and to hear him.

You can't just think that he's going to intervene in your world to redirect. So be intentional. Intentional, making space, turning it off for a moment.

How do you do it? What do you do to give yourself space? Well, I try first thing in the morning is to take time to pray or to meditate, to reflect, to read, to take some time out, and to build in those moments when you can reflect.

And of course, Sunday is very important to take it off. Ken, let me ask you this. We tend to equate in our human experience God's blessing, meaning I'm taken care of, I'm comfortable, and therefore I'm in God's will, because he's meeting every need and every want that I should have. I think we're particularly susceptible to this in the Western world, certainly here in America.

I don't want to speak on behalf of England. But in America, we're very me-centric. And so often we have that equation in our mind. Speak to the issue where God is totally in your corner. You're in the right spot, but your circumstances may not be affirming you in the way that you think they should. That's such an important issue.

Let me try and tackle it this way. You will only know your why in and through others. If you are the sole arbiter of your why, of your purpose, of your calling, you will never know the fulfillment that the New Testament promises to us.

It is in and through others. Paul says, for me to live is Christ. For me to live is someone else. And however your circumstances are, you could have the most menial or the most worthwhile employment. Whatever it is, you need to be able to look at what you're doing in and through the way in which you're experiencing it through others, through voluntary work, through the work that you're doing with your money, with your resources, with your time, with your energy, so that it's not just that the world moves about wherever I happen to be, but it is in a community. And that's why the Church is such an important, powerful tool for God's reaching the world around us. And you'll know your why in and through your interactions with other people. People need to get your book and know your why. For me, especially a dad of two teenagers, you can't start early enough talking about these things.

Everything we discussed today, not to let your circumstances dictate your joy in Christ, to be prepared and to seek the Lord every day to say, what can I do today, Lord, for you, and to be content. The difficulty is that if you've got your smartphone, it is the source of revelation. It will reveal everything to you. Including your weight. Including your weight. Do you stand on your phone?

Do you stand on your phone? Well, I've got to do 10,000 steps today. There you go. See? It tells you everything. It tells me my why. And if a generation that will constantly seek this source will always be unsatisfied because you can never get to a full statement of contentment. What I did mean to add is after the four C's, how do you know that you're in the center of God's walk for you? It's the contentment. The peace that passes all understanding will come upon you. That's one of the best questions to ask somebody who doesn't know the Lord, who you can see is struggling. They don't have peace.

They don't have shalom. And you simply say, are you content with your life? It's different from being happy.

Correct. I think you need to know your why isn't going to make you happy every day. Because it's hard work knowing your why. You've got to get up in the morning.

You've got to do the work that God has called you to do. Sometimes it's tough. You've got to deal with difficult neighbors. You've got the neighbor from hell, and you're going to still offer them. You've got that neighbor too?

Yeah. You've got to give them some coffee. And the person you're working with is driving you mad. But you called to that place. Ken, this is terrific.

And I would encourage everyone listening to get a copy of Know Your Why. And here at Focus, we want to make that available to you for a gift of any amount. It's our way of saying thank you when you support the ministry. And if you can't afford it, call us. We'll send you the book. Don't worry.

Other supporters will make up that difference I'm quite sure. And if you can help us in that way, please do so. This is the way that we minister together to people. And Ken, just simply terrific to have you on board. Thanks.

Well, thank you very much for both of you. And if I might just end this by saying, if you know your why, help others to find theirs. And if you don't know your why, the Spirit of the Lord Jesus is there to help you, to guide you.

But remember that you're loved, you're known, and you're called by him. What a terrific reminder from Ken Costa. And I do hope that this has hit you as a listener right in the heart. Call us to get a copy of Ken's book or a CD of our conversation for yourself or maybe to share with your Sunday School class or to pass along to somebody who needs to know their why. Our number is 800, the letter A in the word family, 1-800-232-6459, where you'll find all the details in the episode notes. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. I love that. Find out more. Go to focusplannedgiving.com. That's focusplannedgiving.com.