Answering Tough Questions with the Small Catechism: What is My Purpose in Life?

What is my purpose in life?

Another way we might ask this is, “Why did God create me?” We can answer this question in both a wide and narrow sense. In the wide sense, the question is answered in the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth,” which Luther explains in the Catechism, “I believe God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them… All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.”

Whenever we arrive at the First Article of the Creed in Confirmation class, this is where I teach the confirmands about what being created in God’s image means, which also has a wide and narrow sense. In the wide sense, it means man is a rational being, which was retained after the Fall; in the narrow sense, it means original knowledge/righteousness of God, which was lost at the Fall and is restored to us in Word & Sacrament (particularly Baptism).

Furthermore, God creates both ex nihilo (out of nothing) and ex amore (out of love). God loves to create, and He loves what He creates. So, why did God create you? Because God loves to make people in His image. Moreover, this gives you innate purpose to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him. This servitude—this worship—is not to a tyrant, but to a loving Father. (Also, since God created man as rational creatures, this means He intends that we use our brains!) If you think this is a selfish demand, consider letting your children run amok in sin and rebellion rather than commanding their love and respect towards you.

In the narrow sense, you can view your purpose in the Table of Duties, which lists general vocations and the duties of those vocations, such as pastor, hearer, citizen, parent, spouse, etc. Actually, you don’t even have to go that far. You can find your purpose—why God created you—in the Ten Commandments, which define both the wide and the narrow sense of your purpose.

Commandments 1-3—what we typically call the first table of the Commandments—tell you the wide sense of your purpose, which is to love God above all things (have no other gods before Him), to keep His name hallowed on your lips, and to keep the Sabbath day holy (notice, too, how the Lord’s Prayer relates to the Commandments).

Commandments 4-10—the second table—tell you the narrow sense of your purpose, which has to do with the specific vocations in which God has placed you. Notice these vocations always have to do with how you relate to other people. As a child, you honor your parents (no matter how old you are); as a citizen, you do not murder; as a married person, you do not commit adultery (if you’re single, you do not commit adultery by lusting; see Matthew 5:27-28); as a citizen, employee, etc., do not steal; as a neighbor (which has many implications; see Luke 10:29-37), do not give false testimony about your neighbor, or covet your neighbor’s spouse or things.

Your purpose in life, then, is first and foremost to worship and honor God. Immediately following this is loving your neighbor (the two greatest commandments, right?), which entails honor, meekness, integrity, and generosity, among other things. Tremendous worth and meaning, then, is found in the ways God has given us to love Him and to love our fellow man. There’s a reason why we enjoy videos of people doing good deeds. It’s because we know there is something fundamentally right—righteous—about loving the people God has placed nearest to us.