You Were Not Made to Float
There is a moment in the movie Forrest Gump that cuts deeper than most people realize. Forrest is standing at a graveside, reflecting on a life full of loss and love, and he wonders aloud whether we have a destiny or whether we are just floating around, accidental-like, on the breeze. It is a question that sounds simple but lands with the full weight of everything a human life can carry.
Most of us have asked some version of it. Maybe not at a graveside. Maybe in a quiet car on a long drive, or at 2 a.m. when sleep will not come. Why am I here? Does any of this matter? Is there a point to all of this?
The answer, according to Scripture, is a resounding yes. You were not made to float.
The Whatever Life
There is a way of living that does not look like rebellion but functions exactly like it. It is the life of whatever. No real direction. No real purpose. Just surviving, drifting, reacting. Getting up, going through the motions, watching the years pass. It is not a dramatic rejection of meaning. It is just the quiet absence of it.
A lot of people live this way. Maybe most people. And the painful truth is that many of them end up at the end of their lives wishing they had done something different. When a group of 95-year-olds were surveyed about what they would change if they could live again, they said they would slow down and savor life more, they would take more risks, and they would do something to leave a mark on the world.
They wanted to matter. They just did not know it until it was almost too late.
Created With a Purpose
The Bible does not leave room for the whatever life. From the very beginning, God's posture toward human beings is intentional and specific. In Jeremiah 1:5, God tells the prophet that before he was even formed in the womb, God knew him, set him apart, and appointed him for a purpose. That is not language of accident. That is language of design.
Ephesians 2:10 describes believers as God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works that God prepared in advance. The word translated handiwork is the Greek word poiema, from which we get the word poem. You are not a rough draft. You are not filler. You are a carefully crafted work, made with intention, shaped for something specific.
And in Acts 17, the apostle Paul stands before Greek philosophers and tells them that God made every nation from one man, marking out their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands, so that people would seek him and perhaps reach out and find him. God arranged the details of history so that you would be in a position to encounter him. He is, as Paul puts it, not far from any one of us.
God has always been closer than you thought. He was there in the hardest seasons. He was there in the confusion. He was there when you were living whatever-like and did not know it. He was waiting for you to turn around.
The Hub and the Spokes
There is a picture that helps make sense of what it means to find your purpose. Think of a wheel. Most people live with themselves at the center, the hub, and everything else, work, relationships, hobbies, even faith, arranged as spokes around them. Church is just another spoke. God is just another item on the schedule.
But when God moves from the spoke to the hub, everything changes. Life begins to have coherence. The gifts you have been carrying start to make sense. The experiences that seemed random begin to look like preparation. The people around you stop being background characters and start looking like the whole point.
Proverbs 19:21 says that many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. You can spend your life building your own kingdom, and you might even succeed by the world's standards. But it will fade. It always fades. The names people make for themselves require history books to be remembered, and eventually even those grow dim. What is built for God's glory echoes into eternity.
Ripples
Here is what a life surrendered to God's purpose actually looks like in practice. It looks like ripples.
When someone jumps into a pool, they create a splash, and the water moves outward in every direction. Each ripple touches the edge and comes back. If there were no walls, those ripples would just keep going. That is the image of a life lived on purpose for God's glory. One life touches another. That life touches another. The ripples do not stop.
Jesus demonstrated this from the very beginning of his ministry. He walked to the edge of a lake and called ordinary fishermen, men who were not the best of the best, to follow him. He said he would make them fishers of men. They jumped out of their boats and followed. And from that moment, the ripples began moving outward across centuries, across continents, all the way to you.
You are a ripple. And you are meant to make ripples.
You do not have to be a pastor or a missionary or a theologian. You have to be willing. A conversation. An invitation. A life lived with integrity in a dark workplace. A parent who prays with their children. A student who starts a Bible study before school. A recovering addict who shows someone else the way out. These are ripples. And you cannot always see where they go.
One Way, One Truth, One Life
In John 14:6, Jesus makes a claim that is either the most important thing ever said or the most audacious. He says he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him. Not one of many ways. The way. Not a truth among many. The truth. Not a life to consider among options. The life.
That is the ripple worth making. Because if it is true, and it is, then there is nothing more urgent, nothing more loving, and nothing more purposeful than pointing people toward him.
You were not made to float. You were made to jump in.
There is a moment in the movie Forrest Gump that cuts deeper than most people realize. Forrest is standing at a graveside, reflecting on a life full of loss and love, and he wonders aloud whether we have a destiny or whether we are just floating around, accidental-like, on the breeze. It is a question that sounds simple but lands with the full weight of everything a human life can carry.
Most of us have asked some version of it. Maybe not at a graveside. Maybe in a quiet car on a long drive, or at 2 a.m. when sleep will not come. Why am I here? Does any of this matter? Is there a point to all of this?
The answer, according to Scripture, is a resounding yes. You were not made to float.
The Whatever Life
There is a way of living that does not look like rebellion but functions exactly like it. It is the life of whatever. No real direction. No real purpose. Just surviving, drifting, reacting. Getting up, going through the motions, watching the years pass. It is not a dramatic rejection of meaning. It is just the quiet absence of it.
A lot of people live this way. Maybe most people. And the painful truth is that many of them end up at the end of their lives wishing they had done something different. When a group of 95-year-olds were surveyed about what they would change if they could live again, they said they would slow down and savor life more, they would take more risks, and they would do something to leave a mark on the world.
They wanted to matter. They just did not know it until it was almost too late.
Created With a Purpose
The Bible does not leave room for the whatever life. From the very beginning, God's posture toward human beings is intentional and specific. In Jeremiah 1:5, God tells the prophet that before he was even formed in the womb, God knew him, set him apart, and appointed him for a purpose. That is not language of accident. That is language of design.
Ephesians 2:10 describes believers as God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works that God prepared in advance. The word translated handiwork is the Greek word poiema, from which we get the word poem. You are not a rough draft. You are not filler. You are a carefully crafted work, made with intention, shaped for something specific.
And in Acts 17, the apostle Paul stands before Greek philosophers and tells them that God made every nation from one man, marking out their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands, so that people would seek him and perhaps reach out and find him. God arranged the details of history so that you would be in a position to encounter him. He is, as Paul puts it, not far from any one of us.
God has always been closer than you thought. He was there in the hardest seasons. He was there in the confusion. He was there when you were living whatever-like and did not know it. He was waiting for you to turn around.
The Hub and the Spokes
There is a picture that helps make sense of what it means to find your purpose. Think of a wheel. Most people live with themselves at the center, the hub, and everything else, work, relationships, hobbies, even faith, arranged as spokes around them. Church is just another spoke. God is just another item on the schedule.
But when God moves from the spoke to the hub, everything changes. Life begins to have coherence. The gifts you have been carrying start to make sense. The experiences that seemed random begin to look like preparation. The people around you stop being background characters and start looking like the whole point.
Proverbs 19:21 says that many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. You can spend your life building your own kingdom, and you might even succeed by the world's standards. But it will fade. It always fades. The names people make for themselves require history books to be remembered, and eventually even those grow dim. What is built for God's glory echoes into eternity.
Ripples
Here is what a life surrendered to God's purpose actually looks like in practice. It looks like ripples.
When someone jumps into a pool, they create a splash, and the water moves outward in every direction. Each ripple touches the edge and comes back. If there were no walls, those ripples would just keep going. That is the image of a life lived on purpose for God's glory. One life touches another. That life touches another. The ripples do not stop.
Jesus demonstrated this from the very beginning of his ministry. He walked to the edge of a lake and called ordinary fishermen, men who were not the best of the best, to follow him. He said he would make them fishers of men. They jumped out of their boats and followed. And from that moment, the ripples began moving outward across centuries, across continents, all the way to you.
You are a ripple. And you are meant to make ripples.
You do not have to be a pastor or a missionary or a theologian. You have to be willing. A conversation. An invitation. A life lived with integrity in a dark workplace. A parent who prays with their children. A student who starts a Bible study before school. A recovering addict who shows someone else the way out. These are ripples. And you cannot always see where they go.
One Way, One Truth, One Life
In John 14:6, Jesus makes a claim that is either the most important thing ever said or the most audacious. He says he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him. Not one of many ways. The way. Not a truth among many. The truth. Not a life to consider among options. The life.
That is the ripple worth making. Because if it is true, and it is, then there is nothing more urgent, nothing more loving, and nothing more purposeful than pointing people toward him.
You were not made to float. You were made to jump in.
Melvin Vandiver
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