Assume that God has a purpose for each of us, or at least, some of us. Our mission, then, is to decipher what it is -- and then accomplish it. The actions performed carrying out this mission would constitute religious behavior.
The problem is determining what is the will of God, and what is our will, and what would be the proper mix. Thinking that you are doing the will of God can be dangerous. Atrocities have been committed by persons who firmly believe that they were doing what God told them to do. Suicide bombers and other mass murderers immediately come to mind, as do psychotics and extreme zealots. The harsh truth is that none of us can really know the mind of God. After all, we can not even be sure that God exists.
An old joke states that Shakespeare did not really write all those works attributed to him. Someone else with the same name did. OK, then if God does not exist, assume that someone else is doing all the things attributed to God. For it is obvious that the Universe exists and that something keeps it running. Call that something God.
One way or another, we strive throughout our lives to find our purpose, our reason for being. For some folks, it seems to have been easy. They do everything right, earn the proper credentials, and practice their profession.
Unfortunately, for the rest of us, life is not so smooth. We get jostled from one disappointment to another. Our lives are jumbled misadventures full of agonizing frustrations. Attempts at success are smacked back with abject failures. Our every hope, our every dream, our every aspiration is crushed. Sometimes we even come very close -- and then get walloped.
Sometimes I think that my purpose in life is to fail. But maybe life is like trying to get out of a maze, where each dead end is a sign that the path chosen is not the correct one. If that were indeed the case, then finding one's purpose would be a simple procedure. Just keep plugging away, trying one damn thing after another, until the right one turns up. Hackers use this approach when looking for passwords. In fact, trial-and-error is widely used in trouble-shooting everything from machines to computer programs. Why not use it where it counts, in our own lives?
However, what if trial-and-error never produces any successes? Does success equal purpose? Is our purpose in life to be successful? It may not be. Perhaps God's purpose for us was, or will be, achieved by some of the actions we performed as we struggled to achieve success. After all, strange and devious are the ways of God.
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