The Purpose of Life

Many people, at some time or another, ask themselves what their true purpose in life is. Some may decide that their only purpose in life is to gratify their own desires and passions without any thought of a premortal or a postmortal state, while others may decide that their purpose is to serve and help others in times of need. Regardless of what you may currently believe our purpose here in life is, it is essential for each person to understand why they exist so as to make decisions about how to conduct their lives.

I believe through my own study and faith, that we have one great overarching purpose here on earth and that is to become like God, our Heavenly Father. This goal can be subdivided into many parts, but I will only discuss the two main reasons we are here living a mortal life. As I wrote in an earlier post, God is the literal father of our spirits. He has a perfect and immortal body, and as His spirit children, we did not enjoy the blessings of such bodies. In order to gain a fullness of joy and glory, we have to have perfect bodies. The process begins by having mortal and imperfect bodies. These bodies are subject to disease and death, but can be made perfect through the Atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who also had a mortal body, but has since overcome mortality and become perfect like our Father is perfect.

The second and more pressing reason for our mortal existence on this earth is to gain the necessary experience that will allow us to think, feel, and become like our Father in Heaven. I believe it is a rare event that a person makes it through this life without experiencing the sufferings of the mortal experience. Most people will face disease, death, and despair. Most people will struggle with temptations, tough choices, and trials of all sorts. The fact is, we all go through mortality experiencing suffering and sorrow along the way. Conversely, we also get to experience the beauty of life. We can all see, feel, and taste the marvelous things our father has created for our enjoyment. We can all enjoy the company of good friends or the warmth of a glowing fire. Mortality is filled with good and bad things. This is wisdom in God. We cannot learn to choose good if no option to choose evil exists. We cannot know what cold feels like if we never learn what hot is. We cannot feel loneliness if we never feel togetherness. There must be opposition in all things. This allows our mortal lives to be places of testing and trying along with places of teaching and training.

The key to all of this mortality business lies in one key principle, agency. Agency, or the freedom to make our own choices is what makes God’s plan so perfectly possible. It is also a main reason why this life is so painful and difficult. God has given us agency and promised us that He will never force our hand in any matter. He cannot take this agency from us in any way. This leaves us free to make our own decisions based on what we believe and feel to be right. Most people try to choose things that appear to lead them to happiness and away from sorrow, but often times we fail to do this. As we progress through mortality hopefully we will learn more and more how to make correct choices and as we make more correct choices we are becoming more like God. This principle becomes very easy to see if we look at a more familiar scenario. We have all been children and all been under the responsibility of an adult. For most of us that was one or both of our parents. As parents, they wanted us to learn how to make choices on our own. My parents showed me how to drive a car, but didn’t let me drive it by myself until they thought I was ready. Even then, they drove with me and guarded me carefully. They started by taking me to open parking lots where little damage was possible. Gradually as I learned, they gave me more and more freedom until they let me take the car our all by myself and make my own choices as to where to go and how to use the car. I never would have learned how to properly use a car had my parents never given me the chance to learn. They took every precaution they could to minimize the chance for problems, but they still had to let me sit in the driver’s seat to really learn how to drive.

In life, we have been give all sorts of precautionary tools by our Heavenly Father because He wants to minimize our chances of having problems, but we are still in the driver’s seat. We get to make our own choices and the end goal is that we learn how to make correct choices and become perfect just like God the Father. I know that we have all made incorrect choices that will bring us and those around us pain and suffering, but we are granted mercy by our loving Father through His son Jesus Christ and we can erase our mistakes and try again and again and again to make the right choice. I know that if we keep trying God will help us become who He wants us to become.

Life is hard, but it is for a great purpose that we are here learning and being tested. We are subject to the weaknesses and frailties of having a mortal body and we are also subject to our own flawed and imperfect decision making skills and those of others. The combination of these things make up our lives here on earth and provide us with great joy and great misery. In the end it is all for the purpose of becoming like our perfect Father in Heaven. I know that with His help we can make it through this life and take on the glory of the next life.