We are living in a generation that has forgotten its purpose. We are a people without telos. That is why the modern world looks like a wasteland.
We binge watch TV shows, we chase careers, we scroll endlessly, we travel from one artificial amusement to the next. We are entertained but empty, busy but barren, constantly consuming but never satisfied. The problem is not that modern people are idle. The problem is that our aim is wrong. Without telos, all effort is misdirected. Without telos, men fire arrows into the wind, never hitting the target.
Telos is a Greek word that means “end,” “aim,” or “ultimate purpose.” It is not about endings in the sense of termination, but endings in the sense of fulfillment, completion, or perfection. Telos is the target for which everything was designed.
An acorn’s telos is to become an oak tree. An arrow’s telos is to strike the mark. A man’s telos is to glorify God. You cannot invent your own telos any more than an acorn can decide to become a rose bush or an arrow can decide to fly backwards. Telos is built into the very fabric of creation by the sovereign God who made it all. To deny your telos is to live against the grain of reality itself. To embrace your telos is to find peace, order, and joy as you fulfill the purpose for which you were created.
Our culture is drowning in nihilism precisely because it has lost any sense of telos. When men no longer know their purpose, they collapse into despair. You see it in the skyrocketing suicide rates, in the epidemic of drug overdoses, in the hollow eyes of young men numbing themselves with pornography and video games, in the young women mutilating their bodies in pursuit of false identities. A society without telos has no future, no story, no reason to endure.
Everything becomes arbitrary. Morality becomes a preference. Truth becomes an opinion. Life itself becomes cheap. That is where we are. A generation raised without direction inevitably concludes that nothing matters. Nihilism is not an intellectual theory for them; it is the air they breathe. The only cure for this disease of despair is a return to God, because only in Him do we rediscover our true purpose, our true story, our true end.
“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). That is telos. “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). That is telos. “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). That is telos.
For me, and for every Christian man called to marriage and fatherhood, this telos takes on flesh in the family God has entrusted to us. My greatest responsibility is not to build a brand, or to accumulate wealth, or to win arguments online. My greatest responsibility is to glorify God by leading my family faithfully. My telos is to raise my children in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). My telos is to love my wife as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25). Everything else I do flows outward from this center.
My work is not an end in itself. It is a means to glorify God through provision, through building, through service to neighbor, and above all through establishing a household of faith. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23). My work matters only because it is done unto Him and for the sake of the people He has placed in my care.
Our society has lost this vision. We build corporations that resemble cults instead of households. We measure success by likes and dollars instead of faithfulness and fruitfulness. We outsource the discipleship of our children to the state, to the screen, to the algorithm, instead of opening the Bible around our dinner tables.
It starts in the home. “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:7). My telos is to live this command. To make the Word of God the air my children breathe, the rhythm of our days, the anchor of our family story.
Worship is not optional. It is the center. The Sabbath is not a suggestion. It is the lifeline that reorients us every week to the true end. Put your body in the pew. Sing the psalms and hymns with your family. Receive the Word. Receive the sacraments. Order your entire week around the worship of God because worship is the training ground for eternity. “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness” (Psalm 29:2).
When the family is ordered around worship, when work is ordered around family, when every aspect of life is ordered toward the glory of God, then everything aligns. There is clarity. There is peace. There is joy. Not the fleeting kind of joy that comes from another gadget or another paycheck, but the lasting joy of a life lived in its true purpose.
The enemy hates this. He does not need to make you a Satanist. He only needs to make you distracted. He only needs to fill your days with trivialities until you forget your purpose. If Satan cannot have your outright rebellion, he will gladly settle for your wandering. That is why the call to telos is so urgent.
Stop wandering. Stop drifting in the wasteland of modernity. Stop chasing the empty promises of novelty. Return to your true telos. Lead your family. Teach your children. Build a household of faith. Work with excellence for the glory of God. Worship Him with reverence and awe. Do all things unto Christ. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36).
That is our telos. That is the aim. That is the end. Everything else is noise.
