There Is Purpose in This

There Is Purpose in This

A 5-Minute Devotional for Busy People

Minute 1: The Hook

You're sitting in the wreckage of a plan that detonated without warning.

The job loss. The miscarriage. The betrayal that came out of nowhere. The diagnosis that rewrote your future in a single sentence. And the question that won't stop echoing: "What is the point of this?"

Not "why is this hard?" — you've made peace with hard. But why this? Why the thing that feels so senseless, so cruel, so cosmically unfair that no amount of positive thinking can paste a purpose onto it?

You've heard the platitudes. "Everything happens for a reason." "God has a plan." They sound like nails on a chalkboard when you're bleeding. Because if this pain has a purpose, you'd like to see the receipt.

Minute 2: The Scripture

Read John 9:1–3 (ESV):

"As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered, 'It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.'"

Read it again. This man didn't go blind. He was born blind. Decades of darkness. Decades of begging. Decades of a story that seemed to start with punishment before he ever had a chance to sin.

Minute 3: The Twist

Here's the twist that will reframe your entire ache:

The purpose of his pain wasn't a lesson for him. It was a revelation of God.

The disciples wanted a tidy cause-and-effect. Someone must have messed up. Someone must be to blame. That's how human brains work — we need a reason so we can believe the universe is fair. But Jesus obliterates the formula entirely. "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents."

The Greek phrase for works of God is erga tou theou — literally the business, the occupation, the active power of God on display. The purpose wasn't to teach the blind man patience. It wasn't to humble his parents. It was so that in the exact place of his deepest deficit, God would show off.

And here's what no one tells you: The purpose doesn't always remove the pain. It redeems it in public.

That man lived decades in darkness before Jesus showed up. The purpose wasn't working behind the scenes where he could see it. It was hidden in heaven's filing cabinet until the day Jesus spat in the dirt and opened his eyes. His suffering wasn't less real because it had a future purpose. The years of begging still happened. The loneliness still counted. But when the purpose finally arrived, it didn't just heal his eyes — it revealed the Son of God to everyone watching.

Your pain may not be about you at all. It may be the exact stage where God plans to show a watching world that He is still in the miracle business. The purpose isn't an explanation you receive. It's a revelation He releases — in His timing, not yours.

Minute 4: The Practice

Five minutes. Three moves. Right now.

Stop demanding the reason. Whisper: "I don't need the 'why' right now. I need the 'Who.'" Explanations won't heal you. His presence will.

Let your pain be a window, not a wall. Ask: "God, how could You display Your works in this exact place?" You may not see the answer today. But asking shifts you from victim to witness.

Do the next thing in the dark. The blind man didn't wait to see before he obeyed Jesus' command to wash. Take one step today — even if you have no idea where the purpose is hiding.

Minute 5: The Prayer

Lord, this hurts. And I hate when people try to make my pain into a parable before I'm ready. But Your Word says there are works of God that can only be displayed in the very place where I am broken. I don't see it. I don't feel it. And honestly, I would trade the purpose for the pain to end. But I trust that You are not wasting this. Use my deficit as a stage for Your power. Let my darkness be where You show off Your light. And when the day comes that I look back, let me see that the purpose was worth the wait — even if I have to wait a lifetime to see it. In Jesus' name, Amen.

One Sentence to Carry With You Today:

Your pain isn't proof of absence — it's the platform where God plans to show up.

Now go. The mud is on your eyes. Go wash. The purpose is coming.