https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S9oqi86yS3g
What I want to write about and the point I want to portray is one I have been trying to figure out for years. It’s an intimidating topic because I don’t know all the answers and I don’t for a second want come across as if I do. It seems to be something people of all ages and stages are always trying to work through…
What is the Lord’s will for my life?
Making life’s next plan is always on the agenda. Planning
for dinner tonight, planning how much studying needs to be done tomorrow,
planning this next weekend, next summer, the next 5 years… it never ends. We
want to know, we want the comfort of predictability, and we want the knowledge
that we are secure in whatever is happening.
I have so many friends in such pivotal points in their life
right now; friends looking at grad school, friends getting ready to graduate
and look for a job, friends about to enter into marriage, and even friends who
are searching for someone to marry. It seems like everyone is looking for
what’s next and what they need to do to get to that next.
I am one of these searchers. I desire to be where it is the
Lord has called me to be, but what does that look like? How do I find where
that place is without mentally going insane from thinking about it all over, and
over, and over again?
What I have found in times of searching is that there is a
theme in the bible. This theme is that man sins and God saves. It is within the
first three chapters of the bible and is consistently woven throughout all of
scripture to the very end in Revelation.
Ya know that verse that people always quote during times of
decision making and life changing steps, Jeremiah 29:11?
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,
plans for welfare and not for evil,
to give you a future and a hope.
Absolutely that is a beautiful verse and all of God’s word
is true, but this verse so often is used out of context. I certainly do believe
God has plans for us, but what this scripture is talking about here rather is
the plans He has for a people that will be redeemed by Him. The people he is
talking to are in despair, they are lost in their sin, but, despite their
absolute disobedience to God He has a plan for them, a future, a hope. He is
going to save them and raise them up to form from them a people of which are
His people, a people who are called to worship Him.
God has a greater plan than for us to each individually live the picturesque life that just verse 11 portrays when quoted.The following are the
immediate verses after verse 11, verses 12-14:
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I
will hear you.
You will seek me and find me,
when you seek me with all your heart.
I will be found by you, declares the Lord,
and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the
nations
and all the places where I have driven you, declares the
Lord,
and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you
into exile.
We must seek Him
with all of our heart.
God tells us in Hosea 5:15:
I will return again to my place,
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,
and in their distress earnestly seek me.
We are a sinful people. We live for ourselves and do
not even turn to acknowledge God. But in His great love for His creation, in
His mercy, He has chosen to save us. He did not send Jesus to die just for a certain people,
but for a people from every nation. Christ’s purpose of coming to this world
was to build a kingdom full and abundant of worshipers who in their distress have earnestly sought Him out!
So where does that leave you and me in our search for what
to do next in this life?
I think it leaves us at a point where we turn from sin earnestly
seeking God. More than anything else, more than the love for ourselves in
creating a career, or a family, or a lasting love we must desire to seek Christ.
We must spend ourselves for His glory and making Him known.
For lasting labor to characterize our life we have to endure
whatever stage, whatever hardship, whatever mundane activity may be taking our
time for the glory of the Lord. We must be going at each day with our minds focused
on eternity. The discipline would be to not have futuristic eyes that are only
looking to what’s next, but rather having eyes that are focused on eternity
that in turn causes us to focus on each and every day with purpose for the
Kingdom.
Jim Elliot, a missionary from the 50's, wrote this to a friend when persuading him to come overseas, encouraging him there is no greater thing he could live his life doing... Elliot wrote:
“God will lead you and not let you miss his signs. It is his
business to lead, to impel, send and call. It is your business to obey, follow,
respond, move and what not.”
-LauraLBrown
Acts 20:24:
But I do not account my life of any value
nor as precious to myself,
If only I may finish my course and the ministry that I
received from the Lord Jesus,
to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
