Your divine assignment is the progressive unraveling and attainment of your primary calling in life. It is blessing the world with the worth and quality of your personhood and attracting others to follow your inspiration. (Psalm 139:15-16)

As Christians, we all have a purpose here on this earth—to build our relationship with Christ, to minister to others in some way, to be a light in the darkness, and to further God’s Kingdom. God will give to us an assignment or assignments that enables us to fulfill our purpose.

Adam’s first job was to take care of Eden. Before God gave Adam a wife, He gave him an assignment. Read that one more time, because it’s important. A big mistake people make is making their whole life about finding another person to share it with. If you see marriage in and of itself as the climax or the end goal for your life, you’re looking at life all wrong, believe me when I say this. Marriage is a good thing, according to God, but your purpose exists separately from—that is, it is not dependent on—a significant other.

Maybe your significant other will play a particular role in helping you fulfill your purpose or carry out your assignment. Maybe that assignment is simply to be a help meet to your husband or a spiritual leader of your wife and children, but finding a significant other and “living happily ever after” with them is not your assignment; your assignment is bigger than just you or you and your spouse. If someone chooses not to marry, never finds someone suitable to marry, or if their spouse passes away or leaves them, the person left alone will still be able to fulfill their purpose. Your God-given assignment can take many forms, and they don’t all involve marriage and children.

If you’re called to marriage, you have to be able to make the distinction between seeing marriage itself as the assignment and instead, God’s vision for marriage. You must make the distinction between seeing your role as a parent as the assignment and instead, raising children to have the love of Christ.

When extracting our assignment from marriage and/or having children, we have to ask ourselves how these things are bringing God glory. We are called to bring glory to God in all that we do, whatever it may be—because that is our purpose.

God tells us to “be fruitful and multiply” because it plays a role in helping us to fulfill our purpose when we raise Godly children and create more people to share in His fellowship. You were created for more than to simply marry and have children just for the sake of doing so. There’s a bigger picture—to further the Kingdom. Too many people, Christians included, marry and have children for the wrong reasons—because everyone else is doing it, because they’re bored, because they’re afraid of being alone, because they are seeking someone or something to give their life meaning. We should build our families with the intention to produce God-loving children who grow up to be a light to the world in order to further God’s Kingdom.

A divine assignment comes in many different forms. This blog is an example of one of my God-given assignments. Your assignment may be writing a book, leading a small group at church, serving, or a multitude of other things. Perhaps your divine assignment is raising Godly children and being a help-meet to your husband. If you’re a man, your assignment might look like being the spiritual leader and provider of your household. You must acknowledge, though, not everyone’s assignment looks the same. We have to remember, God tells us it’s a good thing to marry, but He also tells us it’s a good thing not to. Whatever you choose to do, if it brings glory to God, it is good.

Whatever your God-given assignment is, it will lead you into fulfilling your purpose, ultimately bringing God glory. It’s in the assignment we discover who God created us to be.