Discovering Your Purpose: You Were Designed to Solve a Problem

You are uniquely designed by God to solve a problem. Say it about yourself: I am uniquely designed by God to solve a problem. Identifying the problem you have been uniquely designed by God to solve is how you discover your purpose.

The problems I have been designed to solve are different from the ones you have been designed to solve. And that is exactly what makes us, as the body of Christ, powerful: when we come together with different abilities to solve different problems, there is no problem bedeviling anyone that cannot be solved among us. When we all discover our purpose and come together as one body, we become — together — a solution center.

And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:19 (NKJV)

The problem that bedevils you

So how do you know the problem you are designed to solve? Here is the surprising answer: the problem you have been designed by God to solve is often the very problem that bedevils you.

Why? Because other than God, guess who else has an idea of how you have been uniquely designed and what problems you may have been designed to solve? The devil. And in order to ensure that you fail in your purpose, the devil bedevils you with exactly the same problems God has called you to solve — to throw you off, and to make you feel incapable of solving the very thing that is troubling you.

Look at Joseph. He was designed by God to save lives — and yet he lived under constant threat to his own life. First his brothers wanted to kill him. Then Potiphar’s wife wanted him dead. Then the butler left him for dead in prison. And through the pain he suffered, Joseph learned what it means to give life to people threatened by death.

But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.

Genesis 50:20 (NKJV)

The thing that was meant for evil against you — I declare to you, God shall mean it for good. That job loss. That broken relationship. That betrayal and loss. That pain and suffering. The thing the devil meant to destroy you and make you become nothing — God will redesign it and turn it around for good, so that through you many problems will be solved.

Look at Deborah, the wife of Lapidoth. Often in the Bible, when women are mentioned, their children are mentioned too. Yet she is described as if she had no children of consequence, while her husband is prominently named. But when Israel was in trouble, she rose: “Village life ceased, it ceased in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose, arose a mother in Israel” (Judges 5:7). The woman who seemed to have no children became the mother of all Israel.

Look at David — a man rejected by men. His brothers rejected him. His father overlooked him. He was so forgotten that they failed to invite him to his own coronation ceremony. Yet when Israel needed someone to bring everyone together to worship God, it was the man who knew rejection whom God had designed to step up. And as a shepherd boy who constantly faced lions and bears coming after his flock, David learned to rely on God against terrifying opponents — so when Israel faced the giant problem of Goliath, guess who had already been designed to solve it?

Do you see that problem, that challenge you are facing in your life? I have news for you. The devil bedevils you with it because he knows God has designed you — from your mother’s womb — to be the problem solver. You are not called to solve the problem because you are bedeviled by it. You are bedeviled by it because God had already designed you to solve it.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

2 Corinthians 1:3–4 (NKJV)

Step one: pursue an encounter with Jesus

So how do you begin to discover and manifest your purpose? Let me suggest two steps. The first: pursue an encounter with Jesus. And please hear me out — this is not just “give your life to Christ” or “start attending a church.” I mean ask for a God-encounter.

Peter was already a follower of Jesus before he had that life-changing encounter with Him. The man God had designed to be a fisher of men was wasting his life chasing fish — and catching none — until the day Jesus stepped into his boat. An encounter with Jesus will deliver you from wasting your life in frivolous pursuits and set you chasing your purpose instead.

Zacchaeus was a man designed by God to solve the financial problems of many, yet he was troubled by his own greed and lust for money. That greed was destroying him — it made him unhappy and lonely. Until he encountered Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. The sin that prevented him from entering his purpose lost its grip the day he met Jesus. Whatever sin has kept you from your purpose, an encounter with Jesus is where deliverance begins.

And consider Isaiah. The devil tells some of you, “How can God use you to solve anyone’s problems when you yourself are problems personified?” That was exactly Isaiah’s situation — a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips. How dare he imagine God could use him?

So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips… For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal… and he touched my mouth with it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.” Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

Isaiah 6:5–8 (NKJV)

The difference was simply this: Isaiah had seen the Lord. When you see the Lord, you see that it is not your ability but His ability. Not your power but His power. Not your anointing but His anointing. So make this your honest prayer: “O Lord, give me an encounter.”

Step two: never solve problems alone

The second step: become active in the company of those uniquely designed by God to solve problems. You must join — and become active in — the community of people who have also had an encounter with God.

Here is why. God Himself is a community. God is never alone. The Father is always with the Son and the Spirit; the Son is always with the Father and the Spirit; the Spirit is always with the Father and the Son. Think about it — there has never been a time in all eternity when God was alone. God always solves problems together.

So you must never be alone either, or you will be overwhelmed by your problems. If you are alone, the enemy will take you down. Why? Because although you have been uniquely designed to solve a problem, you have not been designed to solve all problems. Someone else has been uniquely designed to solve certain problems you are facing — which means you have to team up.

This is what Philippians 4:19 is really about. God’s riches in glory are not sitting in heaven — they have been deposited in the saints, in people who have had a divine encounter and discovered how they have been uniquely designed to bring divine solutions to human problems. Whatever the need may be, we have inherited all of God’s riches in glory in Christ Jesus to step up and supply that need.

…but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head — Christ — from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Ephesians 4:15–16 (NKJV)

Simply put: no one person in the body has it all. Some of us have been uniquely designed to solve the problem of wisdom. Some, the problem of shelter. Some, finances. Some, sickness. Some, discouragement. So when a need arises, we approach it as a company — an assembly, a community — and the one designed by God to solve that particular problem simply steps up on behalf of everyone. No questions asked, no noise, no fanfare — they are simply doing their part.

Say I have a financial need. A saint gifted with the riches in glory to meet that need steps up to the plate and supplies it. Tomorrow, when that same saint needs healing, another saint gifted in healing steps up and meets that need. And so on. This way we all increase, “by what every joint supplies… as every part does its share.”

It is because we do not understand this that the one gifted by God to heal is running around looking for ways to meet his financial needs, while the one gifted to supply finances lies sick because the healer is unavailable — off chasing money. What a tragedy.

Friends, the riches of God’s glory are not up in heaven. They are right here on earth, as the inheritance of the saints. May God’s riches not remain trapped in us while we are surrounded by a world dying with unmet needs. So begin here: ask Jesus for an encounter, and plant yourself in the company of His people. May you recognize which portion of the riches in glory you have inherited — and begin to step up and supply it.