Why do I exist?: Finding your purpose on earth will help you make the most it

By Edwin Castro

What do I exist for?

Have you ever asked yourself this question? All of us struggle to know our purpose in life, but many times we settle for living an unfulfilling life. How different it would be if we lived every second focused on what we were created for!

In his book, Why do I exist? Edwin Castro shares the principles of life that will help you identify your purpose on Earth and put aside what you have been called to. You will be encouraged to:

Identify the third most important day of your life
Find your purpose
Put your life plan in motion
and much more!

The day you were born was a historic day, believe it or not.

Find out why.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667800752

Book preview

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Copyright © 2018 by Edwin Castro

All rights reserved.

WWW. EDWINCASTRO.COM

[e-mail]

Designed by Laura Donado

Translated by Luciana Pineda

The biblical quotes were taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV), New Living Translation (NLT), American Standard Version (ASV), Common English Bible (CEB), The Passion Translation (TPT), English Standard Version 2016 (ESV), The Message (MSG), New American Standard Bible (NASB), and the Modern English Version

(MEV).

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018931469

ISBN: 978-1-66-780075-2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Third Most Important Day of Your Life

Chapter 2: Even Before You Were Born

Chapter 3: Inside of You

Chapter 4: Purpose Determines Design

Chapter 5: It’s Not the Same

Chapter 6: A Common Error

Chapter 7: How to Find Your Life’s Purpose

Chapter 8: Let’s Get to Work

Final Words

Appendix: The Genius Zone by Ana Paola Cano

Small Group Study Guide

Notes

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

The time was during the forties. The place? A small town in the department of Boyacá, Colombia, called Campohermoso. The environment? A traditionally Catholic country, where the highest authority of the people was not the mayor or the chief of police, but the priest. It was in this scenario that a missionary couple moved to this small town to start a Christian church. Every Sunday, in response to such a threat, the priest ordered the people not to sell food to these atheists, communists as he called them. He promoted that, in case of selling food, it should be with poisoned, since the missionaries had come to harm the town. It was normal that at the end of the busiest mass on Sunday, people would go out to shatter the glass doors and windows these missionaries’ houses.

Faced with such a discouraging panorama, God began to act in a way that perhaps no one expected. One Sunday, a little girl who was maybe less than nine years old at the time, decided to visit these evil communists, as they were known.

As the little girl later wrote it in an unpublished manuscript, she said: When I started going up the stairs to the second floor of the place where they met, I heard for the first time praises to God, and my heart was captivated; something changed inside me. Upon leaving that place, I made the decision to speak to an aunt and let her know that I had met the missionaries, that they were not bad people and that I wanted to start bringing them food so they would have a sustenance.

From that moment, every night this little girl would be in charge of hiding under her ruana (a typical wool outfit of the region with which the peasants protect themselves from the cold) various products for these people to eat. Being an innocent girl who found nothing wrong with them, these missionaries then became in charge of sowing the seed in her that would eventually become a relationship with God that would touch many people.

Many times, I have thought about these missionaries, and what they would have thought about the result of their trip. Surely, they would wonder if they had truly heard the voice of God when He told them to undertake this mission. Would they have been wrong? I wonder what things would have gone through their minds, since some time later, they left that small town and it only resulted in about only a handful of people knowing Jesus. And of course, this girl or food dealer was included in their list of converts.

But let’s go back for a moment more to the girl’s story. At that same time, she was orphaned and would face very complex situations in her life, such as: the separation from her sisters, not being able to study, and having to avoid a marriage planned by an uncle at a young age with an older man. She’d also face having to leave her hometown to look for her little sister from whom she had been separated, she’d later become displaced by the violence Colombia was facing (a reason that led them to live from one place to another) and face times when they would have to choose between begging, (a suggestion she was given by people) or starting to work at a very young age for sustenance and since then, become the head of the family.

Years would pass until she came to live in the capital of Colombia, Bogotá, a city where she would meet the man who would become her husband and father of her five children. She and husband would live a love story, full ups and downs, but as she always said it: taken by the hand of my God.

The story of this girl moves me and touches me deeply, it is not foreign to me, since it is about the life of my mother. I am part of those five children who deeply thank God for those missionaries who one day made the decision to go to Campohermoso, in Boyacá, Colombia.

On August 25, 2016, Mom turned 82 years old, and that same day she left home to be with her Beloved, as she always called God. In the days after her death, as a family, we were embraced by the love and gratitude of hundreds of people who expressed the permanent mark that Mom had left in their lives. More than four hundred people accompanied us the night we celebrated her life and said goodbye.

Days after her death I was at her house, and while going through some papers, I found the manuscript that I mentioned earlier. They were pages loaded with stories about God’s faithfulness, and how He always accompanied her. But it is possible that what was most relevant and the fundamental reason why I decided to start this book with her story, was the last paragraph of her writing. This girl, who was abandoned by her father, orphaned by her mother, had only two years of school, turned into the head of her family in her adolescence, was displaced by the violence of her country, and who at her young age had to choose between begging or looking for a job to get a living, has always been clear about her purpose in life.

I transcribe what my mother, in her own handwriting, unknowingly wrote for this book: "When we arrived in Bogotá, a cousin helped me get a job and acted very special with us. In that job I met my husband, since he worked near that place. We had a short courtship, we got married, and the Lord blessed us with five beautiful children, ‘my greatest concern (purpose) was that they meet my Lord from their cradle’ [emphasis and author’s explanatory note]".

I write this book because I firmly believe that every human being is God’s response to a situation that must be attended to. God had an idea and created a human being to carry it out. Each person is the answer to someone’s prayer somewhere.

I am the youngest of the five children that Mom and Dad had. Four of them have been called by God to the ministry, and the fifth is involved in the leadership of his local church. We have literally touched the lives of millions of people through the churches that have been founded, the television programs that we have participated in, the many radio station interviews, written books, dictated seminars, thousands of preached sermons, and so on. But it all started with a girl who loved Jesus and knew that her greatest assignment on earth was raising children who loved, feared, and served God.

The night of the celebration of Mom’s life, Pastor José Silva, in a masterful way, addressed the attendees, saying: Carlina has graduated and has done it with honors. She has entered heaven with honors, he emphasized. Mom fulfilled God’s assignment for her life on earth.

The theme of purpose is transcendent, it is vital in the life of every human being. We are not a mistake, we are not a coincidence, we are not the product of a violation or an affair of one of our parents. You are the product of an idea from God; a part of the story that He wants to write on earth. There are songs to write, companies to create, people to be healed, seminars to be dictated. There are books that have not been written, there are ministries that must start, there are animals that veterinarians must heal, there are inventions to be created, there are laws left to write, there are goals to score, planes to fly, designs to develop; in short, there are infinite things that God wants to do on planet earth, and for each one of them He created people keeping in mind that they will carry it out.

Mom never went to high school; she obviously didn’t finish a college degree. However, her purpose on earth had nothing to do with it. She was created by God to raise a family that loved, feared, and served this generation.

It is my desire that, as it happened to me a few years ago, you make the decision to look to God to try to answer the question: Lord, what did you think when you thought of me?

I close by letting you know where the story of this book started. A few years ago, in my time with God, I came across a verse that changed my life forever:

Now when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed.

Acts 13:36 NIV

This verse impacted me so much that I said to my wife: "Love, if I die before you, and you agree, I want this to be what is said about me: After serving his own generation, according to God’s purpose, he died and was reunited with his parents."

As I read this verse it was as if a veil tore before me. Countless questions began to arise: Did David then have a purpose from God for his life? So, he had an assignment to do for this generation? And does that mean that I have a purpose too? Could it be that each human being has one? and many others. In the weeks, months, and years to come, I would begin to find verses loaded with answers to each of the concerns I had but now understand. It was the Holy Spirit who provoked them and He himself was in charge of answering them.

It is my hope that through this book you will discover the purpose for which you were created, and that you will make the necessary decisions to live for Him. I hope that you do not waste your time, resources and relationships doing things that God did not command you to do, for they will only bring frustration, weathering, and loss to your life.

What do you think if you make the decision to graduate with honors, as my mother did, if you live till the last breath to fulfill your purpose, and that you can say at the end of your days what the apostle Paul said with such certainty and vehemence:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

2 Timothy 4:7-8 NIV

So, let’s begin this journey to try to answer the question: Lord, what did you think, when you thought of me?

Chapter 1

The Third Most Important Day of Your Life

The greatest tragedy in life is not death, but a life without a purpose.

Dr. Myles Munroe

In this world, a sad reality exists. The vast majority of human beings accomplish exactly what we, when young, were once taught in biology class in respect to living beings; they are born, they grow, they reproduce, and they eventually die. In other words, the most people in this world simply exist. These people have believed what they have always been told; you must study hard to get a job and become someone in life. They don’t understand that there is more to life than merely being born, growing, reproducing, and dying. They haven’t been told that we are supposed to discover and fulfill a specific purpose for which we were created.

Recently, I had the opportunity to hear a U.S. Senator, Marco Rubio, speak in a meeting. Senator Rubio was citing someone he had once heard speak and honestly, I don’t remember who he cited, but I do remember what he said very clearly: People’s lives are summed up by their tomb stones. Senator Rubio was explaining how a tomb stone contains a person’s birth date, death date, and separating these two dates, a very tiny line in the middle. What matters in life, said Senator Rubio, is what that small line represents. Such a simple yet impactful statement! What does that small line represent? Is it what that person accomplished in life? Most people never have a clear answer to that question.

In his book, Uncovering Your Potential, Dr. Myles Munroe says:

The wealthiest spot on this planet is not the oil fields of Kuwait, Nigeria, Iraq or Saudi Arabia. Neither is it the gold and diamond mines of South Africa, the uranium mines of the Soviet Union or the silver mines of Africa. Though it may surprise you, the richest deposits on our planet lie just a few blocks from your house. They rest in your local cemetery or graveyard. Buried beneath the soil within the walls of those sacred grounds are dreams that never came to pass, songs that were never sung, books that were never written, paintings that never filled a canvas, ideas that were never shared, visions that never became reality, inventions that were never designed, plans that never went beyond the drawing board of the mind and purposes that were never fulfilled. Our graveyards are filled, with potential that remained potential. This is a tragedy.