What do you want to do? Who do you want to be? Where do you want to go?
These are all questions most people spend their entire lives thinking about. But what they’re really asking is much more complex: what is my purpose?
Finding your true purpose in life is one of the most important journeys you will ever take. Oftentimes, it’s a journey of self-discovery, exploration and growth — one that will lead you to a life that is hopefully filled with meaning and joy. But what is your true purpose? How do you find it? There is no one-size-fits-all answer to these questions. Your true purpose is unique to you. It is something that you must discover for yourself. And it’s something that Tim Tebow wants to help others discover.
In Mission Possible, the NFL star writes 365 devotionals to help you discover your purpose — wherever and whatever that looks like. Tebow sat down with RELEVANT to discuss why he’s so passionate about purpose, how to discover it and how to protect it from anything life throws at it.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
RELEVANT: Why do you think it’s important to talk about purpose?
TIM TEBOW: I think it’s a question most people are asking: What is my purpose in life? It’s a question most people are wondering about, trying to figure out. They want to know how to do it, whether they can do it, and even if they have a purpose at all. These are the bigger questions we ask: Why am I here? What am I supposed to do while I’m here? Can I actually make a difference?
I want to be able to help bring people to God’s Word so that they can see Scripture answering these questions. Yes, you have a purpose. Your life is important. Your life is valuable. Your life has meaning, and there are good works for you to do.
I think this devotional helps shape your mindset, your mindset that you have a mission, a purpose, an understanding of your identity, and an understanding of God’s love and character for you. It also challenges you to get uncomfortable, to live intentionally, to say yes to helping hurting people, and to go out of your way. Don’t just say yes to praise, promotion, platform, and status—all the stuff that life throws at us. Say yes to the things that are going to last so much longer.
The third big area that this devotional touches on is encouragement. It encourages you, me, and everyone to trust God’s plan and to give it to the Lord. It’s also encouraging to read the stories of 31 other people who share a piece of their story in here. Some of them are parents who have lost their children. Some of them are young boys and girls who are fighting life-threatening illnesses. One of the stories shared is from a survivor of human trafficking.
These different stories, mixed in with God’s Word, give us encouragement because we all need it. Life can be hard. So, although we want to challenge people, we also really want to encourage them. When they pick up this devotional every day, we want them to know that they can set their minds on things above, be challenged to go live it out, and be encouraged to light that fire a little bit more.
How do you define purpose?
I think it’s what you’re created for, what we’re all created for, I think in the macro, is the same purpose: to love God and to love people. In the micro, I think your specific purpose is a little bit different than mine. And all of us along the way are going to have little unique paths to our purpose.
One way to encourage people to seek their purpose or mission is to ask them: What has God opened your eyes to? What has he pricked your heart for?
One of the stories that impacted my life is when I was 15 and I got to meet a boy who was born in the jungles of the Philippines with his feet on backwards. His village viewed him as less than, as insignificant, as a throwaway. That day I just felt so compelled in my heart. God was just pricking my heart. That is not a throwaway to God and he better not be a throwaway to me. And that day my heart was pricked, my eyes were opened, and I didn’t know how to articulate that. I didn’t know what exactly that meant, but I just knew I’m supposed to fight for boys and girls like this boy. And I still believe that that was a big part of God opening my eyes and calling me and pricking my heart, saying, this is what I want you to do. This is a big part of your micro purpose.
So I encourage a lot of different people: What are the things that God’s really opened your eyes to and He’s pricked your heart for? Is it encouragement? Is it inspiration? Is it teaching? Is it discipleship? Is it a people group? Is it a hurting person? Is it a family? What are the different things that have been stirred up in your life? Maybe that’s not ultimately your purpose, but maybe that can also help lead you to your purpose by saying yes to that and continuing to go down that road.
Once someone identifies their purpose, how can they walk into it?
I think there are a lot of different steps, but maybe even before that is to understand that you do have a purpose and that you really do like it. Ephesians 2:10 tells us that “we are his masterpiece created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand for us to walk in.” So when you understand that in Christ Jesus, you know that you’re a masterpiece, and then you also know that you have good works that were prepared for you long ago. And so it’s knowing, “Okay, I might not know what my purpose is, but I know I have one.” And then when you feel like, “Hey, maybe this is what I’m supposed to do,” I would encourage people to dive into it and try it out. It might not be your final destination, but it might continue to lead you on your journey, right? And you might learn from that, and you know, I have so many friends and family members and loved ones and different people that I’ve been able to walk with along the way that they’ve been impacted by something I stepped into, and maybe that’s not where they ended up, but it was such a piece of their journey that was teaching them or developing them or guiding them along the way to where they might not have got to ultimately if they wouldn’t have started to take those steps.
One of the other things that I encourage people to do is to take steps because I believe that God can do anything at any moment, but I also believe that when we take those steps, a lot of times I just see him use those steps in our lives to teach us. And I also very rarely, you know, ever hear testimonies or see friends that get impacted when they just go home and turn on Netflix. I mean, God can do it. I just don’t see him do it a lot. Yeah, I mean, I just, I don’t see when you get into the fifth season of your next show, you know, a lot of impact or a lot of profound thoughts or changes.
And so, and you know, we all get caught up in that. I’ll get caught up in that, and so my favorite shows too, and it’s not that those are wrong. Sometimes it’s nice to have something where you don’t have to think. But I would encourage people, you know, like maybe if you, if you, if we gave up one of those, or maybe if especially for young people, that you know, one study just indicated that young people right now spend more time on devices than they do asleep, right? That’s a lot of different voices and that’s a lot of things that aren’t necessarily going to always be positive. So maybe if there was one show we put down, one device we put down for a little bit, and that thing that stirred our heart we stepped into that a little bit more.
How do we overcome hurdles that keep us from our purpose?
That’s such a good question because when you’re trying to live out your mission, it’s not always easy. I would even say at times might not even feel fun. But I would also say that I believe that it’s totally worth it. It really is. And so I think the encouragement is really important because encouragement means to give support, confidence, or hope to. And we need those things. We need support. We need confidence and we need hope. And those are things that I feel like it’s why it’s so important that we start our day in God’s words, or why we start our day being able to dive in things that are also going to give us hope and hat are going to spark that hope in us. Things that hat are going to give us confidence and are going to support us.
Because life’s not always easy and it’s hard. But I think when we understand that going in, we know there’s going to be obstacles. We know there’s going to be adversity. But we also know when we say yes to it, at the end of the day, it’s also going to be worth it. Right? And so it’s that encouragement with the mindset of, hey, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be fun at all times. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. I do believe that it’s going to be fulfilling. But that fulfilling is also different than fun.
There’s going to be obstacles and there’s going to be naysayers. And there’s even going to be disappointing times. And one of the things that I like to encourage people with is, one of my oldest sisters, who was a missionary for a really long time in some really hard places, would always say to me, “Timmy, God will never waste your pain when you give it to Him. God will never waste it.” And so a lot of times, in going through the missions that God has for us and the purpose that God has for us, there are periods and moments of pain. But I also believe when we give it to Him, God’s not going to waste it. He’s going to use it in our lives and through our lives.
I think that’s also a piece that we like to touch on because it brings purpose to the pain. It brings meaning in those moments. And that’s something that we can also hold on to because adversity is here, it’s coming, or it’s just past us. But it’s a cycle. And while we’re here, it’s going to happen. I don’t encourage people to shy away from it or hope it doesn’t happen. We can be prepared for it. We can know it’s coming, but we can also be ready to brace ourselves.
