What Is Our Purpose?

OUR PURPOSE IN LIFE IS TO GROW IN WISDOM AND IN LOVE. ― RACHEL NAOMI REMEN

We are always being formed. But most of the time, it happens haphazardly and without intention. To engage in spiritual formation is to purposefully cultivate practices and disciplines with one clear goal: drawing nearer to ____________.

On the line above, insert the word(s) that open your heart. The sacred, source, spirit, God, love, emptiness, true self, grace, the ground of being, Buddha nature, justice, the divine, Allah, awareness, Christ, that which is greater than ourselves…!

Whichever words belong on your line, your work is to listen for the call of that which is named. Spiritual formation, as a process, sharpens our attentiveness to _________ and helps us more and more to manifest the qualities of __________ in our lives. Over the course of the next year, let us each seriously consider how to prepare to change the pattern of our everyday lives to unwaveringly practice the purposes of ___________. At the highest level, this is really what the life experience is truly all about.

Our higher purpose is to learn how to tend to sacredness across three dimensions: in ourselves, in others, and of that which we are a part of. This entails establishing a deepening spiritual life that consists of a meaningful personal and spiritual connection in each of these three domains. We must explore in depth what that means for us, and begin to cultivate practices and disciplines that help us to go there.

At the end of the one year, I am inviting you to write a statement articulating your highest-level commitment to ___________, and what it will now mean to you to engage most deeply into this way of being for an additional year.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and efforts with a coach, mentor, elder, Iman, Paster, Priest or Rabbi that you already have a close relationship with throughout your initiative for the benefit of receiving good personal and spiritual direction, and overall encouragement. This is clearly the road less traveled, but the one that we all must find the courage to take if we are to grow fully into our true selves as spiritual beings, and to have our lives flourish.

It's never too early or too late in life to take this path.

Safe travels and many blessings.

Coach Jon/JD