Does God Have a Specific Will for Your Life?

Does God have a specific life purpose for you? 

The short answer is yes, absolutely. 

But if it’s that simple, why write a blog post about it? Because it’s not as straightforward as it seems. God’s will can often be misrepresented—either by misguided people, some of them seeking to manipulate it for their own purposes, or by us ourselves when we label our desires as God’s will.

Some preachers and self-proclaimed guides color the language of their preaching with persuasive descriptions of how they can help people find God’s specific will for them. 

Those “purposes” can range from building wealth, embracing entrepreneurship or starting a personal ministry. 

Some go so far as saying that it is God’s purpose for you to be prosperous and wealthy—and that you only need to follow certain steps to achieve that. 

This form of preaching, in some ways similar to what has been dubbed the “health and wealth gospel,” proves to be extremely successful in selling books and filling pews. This isn’t surprising because this message often appeals to people who feel lost in their personal lives and are attracted to the idea that God has a unique, specific purpose just for them. 

These preachers often teach their followers to look for what God has “placed in their heart” or to “unlock” their spiritual gifts and purpose. They promise to help people find their unique, individual calling in life.

This emphasis on individual purpose sounds great, but is it biblical? 

(To learn more about discovering God’s will in general, read “What Is the Will of God?”)

The problem with the message of individual purpose

The message of individual purpose is enticing and attracts many because people want to believe that God has a predetermined path for them and that someone can give them the keys to discover it.  

Now, before we go any further, we have to be clear: God does have a purpose for humanity, which includes every single human being who’s ever been born. (More on that later.) However, the Bible does not teach that He has also outlined a specific and irrevocable path for each person to follow in his or her individual life.

What these teachings fail to consider is that God gives people choices.

God grants people the opportunity to make choices. Some choices don’t have a right or wrong answer. In other cases, there might be a right choice and a wrong choice, but we are still free to choose as we wish. We are not predestined to choose a particular option.

Even those whom God called to do specific tasks in the Bible had to choose whether to accept or reject God’s calling in their lives. 

For instance, God had a purpose for the people of Israel, but when they chose to rebel against Him, He made it clear that He could achieve that purpose without them (Exodus 32:9-10).

Similarly, God established David’s line as a dynasty, but only after David had chosen the path of righteousness. God extended the same offer to Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:38), but he rejected it, choosing to worship other gods.

God may offer opportunities—He may even desire certain things for someone, but like parents watching their children grow up, He will not make our choices for us. He certainly could—God could make us choose His way every single time, but doing so would shatter any sense of personal responsibility. We need to learn how to choose for ourselves.

The “gospel” of individual purpose suggests that there is one purpose for you and that you must find and accomplish it. This is a teaching dangerously close to determinism, which is often called the doctrine of predestination.

The idea of predestination is that individuals are “predestined” to one fate or another—salvation or damnation. While this doctrine is most commonly applied to one’s eternal fate, the idea that all people have a set purpose from which they must not deviate is simply another form of determinism—the denial of free will.

The problem with this idea of predestination and, by extension, the “gospel” of individual purpose, is that it eliminates personal responsibility. One is no longer responsible for his or her own actions, but is merely a pawn in God’s greater storyline of his or her life.

The Bible does not teach that He has also outlined a specific and irrevocable path for each person to follow in his or her individual life. (To learn more about the errors of this belief system, read “What Is Predestination?”)

While many people have good intentions in seeking God’s will, others can twist teachings such as these to justify doing whatever they want to do. Some might explain away their actions as following what God is “placing” in their hearts to do. They attribute their self-will to God, claiming that they are simply following His lead.

Be careful of those who claim that they can help you find God’s specific, individual path for your life. People who make these claims are often seeking to get something from you rather than really trying to help you. 

Throughout history, God has called certain men and women to fulfill specific roles in His plan—individuals like Noah, Abraham, Moses, Esther and Jonah. However, these unique callings have been rare, and each of these individuals had the freedom to either accept or reject God’s purpose for them.

God does not call most people to a specific, predetermined path. He hasn’t called us to be a pawn in some cosmic chess game. Instead, He grants each of us the freedom to make our own choices and to pursue a relationship with Him voluntarily. We learn by our choices, and likely we can be pleasing to God in many different careers, for example. 

What about spiritual gifts?

Those who promote the message of individual purpose often emphasize the biblical concept of spiritual gifts. They claim that they can help their followers discover the spiritual gifts God has given them.

It is true that God gives gifts—spiritual aptitudes to use in service to Him and other people. It is also true that having those gifts does not guarantee that someone is destined to accomplish some magnificent and predetermined work with them.

In Romans 12:6-8, Paul calls on Christians to use their gifts. The very fact that he exhorts us to use our gifts implies that we have a choice not to use them. God gives gifts, but He won’t make us use them. Moreover, He won’t make us use them in the right way.

God doesn’t give each of us a step-by-step life path to follow, where every decision about our future is somewhere in heaven and we just have to find it. God doesn’t give each of us a step-by-step life path to follow, where every decision about our future is somewhere in heaven and we just have to find it. Instead, He gives us the tools and then expects us to find profitable ways to use them. And, when we ask Him, He sometimes opens doors of opportunity to use them.   

If I have a gift for speaking clearly and concisely, that doesn’t mean that I’m destined to become a preacher. It means I must look for opportunities to use my speech to honor God and benefit others.

If I have a gift for serving, it doesn’t mean that I’m destined to attain some formal position of service. It means I must put my skills to good use wherever I find an opportunity to do so.

Paul encouraged the brethren in Galatia to serve each other as they had the opportunity (Galatians 6:10). The attitude here isn’t about waiting for God to present your life path, but rather actively using the skills we have when we see a need. 

When it comes to using spiritual gifts, the question is, “Where are opportunities to use this gift for the benefit of others?”

What is God’s will for us?

But, readers, please don’t conclude that God has no purpose for you and has left everything up to you. The truth is, God does have a will for you. Ultimately, it is the same will He has for all humans: to live forever in His glorious and eternal family!

God is calling “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10) and does not want anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9). God wants this so much that He “gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

God wants us all to repent of our sins and turn to Him. He wants us to live our lives in growing obedience to Him. He wants us to enter His Kingdom and live eternally.  

But all this, like anything else, is our choice.

The Almighty God could force us to choose His way, but He won’t because He doesn’t want a family of automatons programmed to do His will. Rather, He desires a family of individuals who willingly choose right.

Just as He did for the Israelites, God lays before us life and death, good and evil.

So, choose life.

(To learn more about God’s purpose for you, read “Why Were You Born?”)

Beware the gospel of individual purpose

The message of individual purpose is attractive on the surface, but it is a slippery slope that can lead us to conflate our feelings and desires with a calling from God.

The truth is, God’s purpose for you is that you live your life in obedience to His laws and enter His Kingdom as an eternal spirit being. 

We should seek God’s guidance in our daily life and seek to make decisions in accordance with His law, but we don’t need to fret about trying to discover some individual cosmic will that He has predetermined for our lives. 

Beware of those who claim they can help you find God’s specific purpose for you individually. God has made His will for you—and for all of mankind—clear in the Bible, and He gives you everything you need to be able to follow it.

Our focus should not be upon some self-proclaimed purpose, but rather upon God’s great purpose for us and all humanity.

Photo credits:
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Date Posted: March 24, 2025