Five Questions to Find Meaning For Your Life

It worked every time. Five questions and five minutes was all I needed.

Each one would have a resume in hand, hoping to find an opportunity, whether through me or the representative at the next table.

Holding the resume and gathering a quick glimpse of their background I would ask them five questions.

Question One:  “What do you want to do now?”

They would always begin to recite their resume and what they had accomplished.

I would respond and say, “That’s great.”

Question Two:  “What makes your heart beat faster?”

They would then transition into a very broad and vague, often confusing, list of goals they hope to accomplish one day.

Often using words like “anything”, “everything”, “someday” and “somehow”, followed by “if”, “but”, “maybe” and “not sure”.

I would respond with, “Neither am I sure what all of that meant, but, it sounded very inspiring.”

Then I would  ask questions three, four and five in quick succession not allowing them to answer until after the final question.

Question Three: “What were you born to do?”

Question Four: “Why are you on this earth?”

Question Five: “Why did God put life into your body?”

Their responses were so predictable it was almost scientific.

It was always, “I don’t know.”, “I have never thought about it.”, and “No one has ever asked me these questions.”

With “I don’t know.” being the most common response I would say, ” I am sorry.  But I simply do not believe you.  I believe you do know but have never expressed it.  I think you know exactly what it is.”

We would then discuss their life, their passions, their strengths and their desires.

I would push them, poke them, prod them, pull them, anything I had to do to get them to express what they were born to do, what was the desire of their heart.

One gentleman, after four minutes of this, that and the other thing, finally blurted out, “I want to start a family owned Italian restaurant in Decatur, Georgia!”

We each stared at each other for a second and I asked, “Then what keeps you from doing it?”

What keeps you, what keeps me, from doing what we were born to do?

It is right there in front of you and you know exactly what it is.

Find someone you trust and express what you want to do now, what makes your heart beat faster, what you were born to do, why you are on this earth and why God put life into your body.

“May he give you the desires of your heart, and make all your plans succeed.”  Psalm 20:4