What is the purpose of my life?
My purpose is to know God, love him, enjoy him, and glorify him. God made me for himself.
“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Nearly four hundred years ago, the Westminster Shorter Catechism opened with almost the exact question you might be asking right now, and gave what may be the most quoted answer in the Reformed tradition: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” Two things in one sentence — glorify, and enjoy. Not one at the expense of the other.
Scripture builds this from the very first chapter. We’re told humanity was made in God’s image —
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
— not as an afterthought, but as the crown of creation, formed to reflect who he is. Paul later applies this to everything, not just religious moments:
“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
But here’s what keeps this from sounding like cold duty: the psalmist doesn’t describe knowing God as an obligation — he describes it as pleasure. “Fullness of joy,” “pleasures forevermore.” The catechism’s “enjoy” isn’t a soft add-on to “glorify.” In the Bible’s own logic, you can’t really do one without the other. A life aimed at anything smaller than God — success, relationships, comfort — will always leave something unfinished, because none of those were ever big enough to be the point.
Hard questions
Isn’t my life about knowing myself?
We tend to assume self-knowledge comes from looking inward. But Scripture’s pattern runs the other way: we understand ourselves rightly only in light of who made us and why. A tool works best when used for the purpose it was designed for — and people are the same. Made in God’s image, we’re designed for relationship with him; looking only inward for meaning is like a compass trying to find north by studying itself.
Isn’t it just as important to achieve my potential, make friends, and enjoy life?
Those things matter — but none of them were built to carry the full weight of a life’s purpose, and every honest person eventually feels that weight slip. Career success, friendship, and comfort are real goods, but they were never designed to be the final goal. Augustine’s old line still lands: our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Not because the other things are bad, but because they were made too small to be the point.
What does it mean to glorify God?
To glorify God is to reveal, in a visible way, what he is actually like. Creation itself does this constantly — the scale of the stars, the intricacy of a single cell, all point beyond themselves to the One who made them. People do it too, but in a more personal way: loving someone difficult to love, telling the truth when it costs you, being patient when you’d rather not — these aren’t just “good behavior,” they’re small, everyday reflections of God’s own character, visible through us.