Some years ago a man in his sixties was offered $200,000 for his roadside motel, restaurant and service station which he had spent his life building. He turned it down because he didn’t want to retire.

Two years later when he was sixty-five, a new highway was built that bypassed his business, which subsequently went broke. Most people at his age would have thrown in the towel. Not this man. He knew how to cook chicken so he took off across the country in his battered old car to sell his recipe to other restaurants. It was tough going. I have read that his recipe was rejected by 1,000 restaurants before he found a taker. However, he stuck with his goal and within a few years he had built a restaurant chain across the country and spread it to other lands as well—a chain called Kentucky Fried Chicken. The man’s name? Colonel Sanders.

I don’t know if Colonel Sanders’ purpose was God-given or not, but having a life purpose that is God-given, as the Israelites had, won’t make life easy, but it will make life worthwhile and give you something to live for that is bigger than yourself.

And if it is a God-given purpose, with God’s help, it is possible to achieve if we have the fortitude of a Caleb and a will-to-win like Colonel Sanders. It will also make our lives very worthwhile.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to discover my God-given life purpose and, with Your help, do everything in my power to see Your purpose in and through me fulfilled. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’s name, amen.”

1. 1 Corinthians 4:2 (NIV).