Is your life about dealing with others, or dealing with God?
As-Salaamu alaikum—peace be upon you.
Are purpose and mission the same thing?
Hmm.
I certainly don’t think so.
By the end of my first year of college, I had a renewed sense of purpose.
Several thousand miles away from the church I grew up in, I struggled at first to find a religious or spiritual community that felt like home.
There seemed to be just two options.
Option 1: old stone buildings full of retired men and women who couldn’t connect to my context.
Option 2: student lounges full of classmates who talked like the Originator of the Universe was their buddy.
One felt irrelevant to me, the other disrespectful.
Both drove me away.
It took me almost a year to find my spiritual home.
It ended up being in the Muslim Students Association prayer room on campus.
But where exactly I found my spiritual home is less important to this story than the fact that I found it, and found a deeper sense of purpose with it.
All the ways I had wanted to connect with the Divine as a child were finally fulfilled in this new religious tradition I came across. And my purpose was clearly defined: to worship God, as He had taught us through revelation to His prophets.
At age 18, I had found my purpose.
And I thought that was good enough.
For years.
For years, I thought that my deeper sense of purpose would cause everything else in my life to improve and align.
But I was wrong.
Don’t misunderstand me—finding deeper purpose left me more fulfilled at the end of the day.
But, strangely, it also left me more anguished.
Because it called into question my mission—all the life and career objectives I had until that point—and it shattered almost all of them.
So there I was, broken into pieces on the floor, crushed by the weight of purpose.
It took me years to understand how to rebuild everything.
In other words, how to erect a life sturdy enough to handle the pressure of purpose.
I needed to rethink my mission.
You see, I see the difference between mission and purpose as the following:
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Purpose is your “vertical Why.”
It answers “Why?” you do what you do, with respect to your Creator.
Mission, however, is your “horizontal Why.”
It answers “Why?” with respect to creation.
Purpose is how you serve God, and mission is how you serve Him by serving His creation.
Purpose is theoretical, and mission is the practical work of it.
Because once you have your intentions set with God, interacting with people becomes your means to interact with God Himself.
Did He not say in a sound report from the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ that He will say to us on the Day of Judgment, “I was hungry, and you didn’t feed Me”?
Our response will be, “God, how could we feed You, when You are the Lord of the Worlds?”
His response: “Wasn’t so-and-so hungry and you didn’t feed him? If you had fed him, you would have found Me there.”
Are you interacting with others as if that’s all they are to you?
Or are you taking them as your means to interact with Allah Himself?
Is your sense of mission sturdy enough to hold your sense of purpose?
Getting to that place takes work and focus.
And that’s one of the reasons why we built the Greater Why coaching program.
If you need help changing your perception of who you’re really interacting with, don’t hesitate to set a time to talk about how we could help:
https://calendly.com/
As always, thanks for reading.
-Adnan