We would all agree life can be difficult. Pressures of daily living sometimes overwhelm us, relationships can disappoint us and our own expectations may go unmet. How do we reconcile our experiences with the idea that God wants us to be successful? Consider the evidence confirming that He desires us to succeed.

A Plan and a Purpose

God has a plan for our lives. There is a general purpose revealed in Scripture that applies to all believers as well as a specific design for each individual. (Ephesians 2:10)

His Presence

God does not ask us to work out our own success; He sent the Holy Spirit to answer our questions and to guide us in our decision-making process. (John 16:13)

Special Gifts

The Lord has provided each of us with spiritual gifts selected to fit with what He wants us to do in life. (1 Corinthians 12:7-11) Our part is to learn what our gifts are and to use them as God directs.

24-Hour Communication

God, who has given us the privilege of prayer, has much to tell us. He invites – and urges – us to stay in touch with Him and talk things over. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

God has given each of us inborn desires to achieve the purpose He has in mind. He plans to fulfill those desires by transforming us into Christ’s image. Regardless of our difficulties, we are to believe the evidence that He wants us to succeed, and we should respond in obedience. Real success occurs when we act more and more like Jesus.

“The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.” Psalm 23:1-3

I should have gotten up earlier. Why did I choose a flight this early in the morning? If I hit one more red light I’m going to miss it. I will have to park in short term parking for a long-term trip. I just can’t miss this trip. I have to be at the meeting on time and there are no back-up flights.  Maybe I should have gone the night before.

All of these thoughts were in my mind as I sped, a little over the limit, down the highway towards the airport. As the departure time drew closer, my chest tightened.

Then I caught an ear to the sermon on Christian radio. “Faith and patience are tied together”, he said. Oh really, I thought. Yes, he said… “If our faith is in God we will have undeniable patience. The two are inextricably intertwined. If my faith is in Him and I have surrendered my life to the Lord Jesus Christ, then I won’t worry about whether I make that flight.” Or really, I thought, how does this guy know I am on the way to the airport. I listened further and more intently.

What if my making that flight is not in God’s plan? If I am totally dedicated to him then I should not fret or worry about the future, schedule wise, health wise, financially wise or any other wise.

This is a translation of the 23rd psalm from a Japanese Bible.  It says it all:

The Lord is my Pace-setter, I shall not rush;
He provides me with images of stillness, which restore my serenity,
He makes me stop and rest for quiet intervals,
He leads me in ways of efficiency through calmness of mind,
And His guidance is peace.
Even though I have a great many things to do each day,
I will not fret, for His presence is here,
He prepares refreshment and renewal in the midst of my activity,
His timelessness, His all-importance, will keep me in balance,
By anointing my mind with His oils of tranquility.
My cup of joyous energy overflows,
Surely harmony and effectiveness shall be the fruit of my hours,
and I shall walk in the pace of my Lord and dwell in His house forever.

That gives life a new perspective. Let God be your pacesetter, your provision for everything and above all a peace about life.

Question: Do you need God’s peace today?

She was  one of the great leaders of the 21st century, playing a vital role  in the end of the Cold War in Europe. She was a strong woman in a man’s world.  The movie entitled Iron Lady was  recently released depicting the story of her courageous life.

I thoroughly  enjoyed viewing this film captivating the life and career of Margaret  Thatcher, Prime Minister of England. But, it was one particular quote of hers  that resonated with me. In her declining years she looks back and says:  “It used to be what we could  do. Now it is all about what we can become or who we can  be.”

What are you living for? What  is your ultimate goal? Who are you trying to please? The old catechism answer  says that our chief aim is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. So what does  that mean? Simply, it means our goal is to please  God.

Who’s in  control of your life? Who’s pulling your strings? For the majority of us, it’s  other people – society, colleagues, friends, family or our religious  community. We learned this way of operating when we were very young, of  course. We were brainwashed. We discovered that feeling important and feeling  accepted was a nice experience and so we learned to do everything we could to  make other people like us and to be a big dog in the kennel of  life.

In Ephesians 5 we are told  that our goal is to “Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is  found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is  pleasing to the Lord.” If we  try to live by the opinions of others, we will build our life on sinking sand.  The person who tries to please everyone will only end up getting exhausted and  probably pleasing no one in the process.

To be successful in God’s eyes is  to do God’s will for our lives. After all, he created us with a purpose and  for a reason. If we are driven by these values and not by the changing  opinions and value systems of others in this secular world, we will live a  more authentic, effective, purposeful and happy life. We will be actualized  and successful.

Life is  not about who makes history and headlines or who acquires the most power and  possessions. Life is about pleasing the Creator of all of us.

Only one  question remains – do you really want to be free?

God has a plan for our lives and we experience that plan as we walk it out one day at a time. Our lives are a journey and in order to get to the next thing we need to “keep moving.” In the natural we need to reach each point in order to receive what is waiting for us there, it is not the weekend until it is the weekend, we don’t receive the paycheck until it is payday. In the same way God has provision for us along the path of life, and as long as we keep moving forward in faith, we will have His perfect provision in His perfect time.

God is calling each us to a life of purpose and meaning, and He is faithful to provide everything we need in order to fulfill that purpose. His paths drip with abundance (Psalm 65:11), and as long as we listen for His voice as He leads us, stick to His paths and follow His footsteps, we will continually find His perfect provision in the perfect time.

Uphold my steps in Your paths, That my footsteps may not slip. Psalm 17:5

You will show me the path of life; At your Right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11

I don’t know what your experience is with work.  I’ve seen it all.  Like the business owner with five stores in two cities commuting to and from whose kids had not been on a family vacation in their lifetimes as six- and eleven-year-olds.  Like a professor who gets four weeks free in summer but chimed “I don’t think I’ve ever taken off a whole month. What would I do?”  And still others who are working hourly-paying jobs, enduring the routine, and forever eyeing the clock.  They loath their work, glory in coffee breaks, and live for long weekends.

Bryan Robinson studies workaholism and defines it as a compulsive disorder characterized by self-imposed demands, over-working, and the inability to regulate our work.  One sign of it is not investing in our home lives.

At the other end of the continuum is sloth which is inactivity born of ‘careless indifference’ or not giving a rip.  Maybe we don’t care about work when we find no purpose in it.

I suppose there’s virtue somewhere in the middle.  In between is that mix of hard work and intentional play.  In the creation story God’s purposes were wonderfully guided: He intended to architect the universe, earth, bugs, and us.  And then he rewarded himself, not because he was tired, but because he wanted to set an example for us, his creation.  Work, work, rest; work, work, rest.  When those tasks are out of balance, we’re prone to exhaustion on the one hand, or insolence on the other.

Questions:  How’s your work-life balance?  Does your work sap your life?  Does your life provide no purpose for your work?  How might God help give purpose to life and work?

Are you in a storm today? Come talk to a mentor.

 “A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’” (Mark 4:37 – 38)

I’ve been in the midst of many storms in my life and you have been too.  In those times, it’s hard not to focus on ourselves or on the situation.  It’s easy to sometimes feel that God has forgotten us.  But there is purpose in the storm.  The storms of life help shape and mold us.  It builds faith, character, and “worketh patience”. (James 1:1-7)

God also wants to use us in the midst of the storm.  The church that I attend recently did outreach on the Coney Island boardwalk.  The winds that day were gusting at 30-40 miles per hour.  There was a sand storm!  The sand and wind were hitting us so hard in the face that we actually could not face certain directions.  Every time we opened our mouths to minister, we ate sand!  One member said, “There’s not much that we can do out here”.  Still, we stood in the midst of the storm.  We knew that God had sent us there with a purpose.

Very soon after, a homeless man, Dave, and his friend approached me.  Dave asked, “Why are you out here?”  As the sand swirled around us, I was able to share the love of God with him.  I told him how God had sent us there to let Dave know that He loves and cares for him and that’s he’s not forgotten.

Afterward, Dave told me his story  – how he ended up on the street and how he couldn’t believe that he was there.  I was able to give him resources and pray for him and also for his friend. Dave received the prayer, gave thanks, and walked away a couple of steps.  Then he came back and said, with tears in his eyes, “It’s so hard out here”.

Dave was also in a storm.  There are many people in the midst of the storms of life without any hope.  Many who are right around us – on our jobs and in our neighborhoods – are struggling.  The winds are blowing on all of us.

As believers, our hope is in Christ, the One who can speak to the winds and the waves, “Peace, be still.” (Mark 4:39)  He gives us His peace in the midst of the storm and calms our fearful hearts.  He reminds us of this peace in John 14:27,“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you:  not as the world giveth, give I unto you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

We know Him to be “faithful and true”(Revelations 19:11).  He’s “the God of all comfort” (II Corinthians 1:3) who meets us in the storm and comforts us with His presence and grace.  We have to allow God’s light to shine through us, that others might be blessed, even while we ourselves are standing in the storm.

Holy God, Thank you for being with me in the storms of my life. Teach me to stand firm on your promises when the wind swirls around me.  Amen.

Question: Are you in a storm? Though you may not see it, there is purpose. How can you be an example of God’s light as you walk through your storm?

Would you tell me your job title or refer to your relationships – husband, wife, son, daughter, friend? Would you talk about your successes, or failures, your dreams or your past? These are parts of who you are, but you are more than what you do or where you live.

You are a human being who is loved by God. You are intelligent, beautiful, loved, and not alone.

Take a minute to think about that – God loves you, and not because of what you do. He loves you for who you are and will never leave you because of anything you’ve done. Isn’t that just the kind of love you’ve always dreamed about?

You might not think of yourself as exceptional, but you are. You are a hand-crafted original. God made you on purpose, no accidents of fate or chance. The Bible says that when God created man and woman He “saw everything that He had made, indeed it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31) God created you and He is interested in the details of your life. The Bible tells us that Gods knows each of us better than we know ourselves – he even knows how many hairs are on your head! (Matthew 10:30)

It’s pretty incredible to think about. The same God who created the stars and turns the colors of the leaves in Fall, created you. You are His masterpiece and He loves you. God created you to have a relationship with Him.

So, why does it sometimes feel like you and God aren’t on speaking terms?

You know what it’s like when you have an argument with a friend and there’s distance between you? It’s like that with God and us. God could have created us as robots that just did whatever we were told, but he didn’t. He gave us free will, the ability to choose. It’s because of his love for us. Love without choice isn’t love, it’s coercion. You can’t have any real relationship without choice.

So, as humans we get to choose, and in the very beginning we chose to go our own way. Sin entered the world and with it came a separation from God, a distance in our relationship with him. I know what you’re thinking, “Sin? But I’m a good person” Being a good person isn’t enough.

The word sin in the Greek comes from a word that means simply “missing the mark”. We can try really, really hard to be good people, but to be able to be in relationship with God we’d need to be perfect in our thoughts, attitudes and actions. We all know that’s not possible. The Bible tells us that the punishment for sin is death – eternal separation from God. We are all sinners but that is not where the story ends.

If God loves us, why would we perish? That’s a good question. God cannot just ignore our sin. God is just – he is concerned with right and wrong. The price of our sin is death – eternal separation from God – someone had to pay that price. God couldn’t take away the punishment. If he did that it would be like saying that sin isn’t really a problem. It would mean pretending that everything is okay between us instead of actually repairing the relationship.

Since God loves us, he does not want us to perish. So He sent His son Jesus to die in our place. Jesus, Himself divine; God in human form; God’s only son, lived a perfect life and was put to death on a cross. He died a death He didn’t deserve so we could live a life we couldn’t earn. God made an unthinkable sacrifice. There was a card years ago that said something like this:

“How much do you love me?” I asked Jesus.
And he stretched out his arms on a cross and said “this much.”

It says in the Bible that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). God loves us so much that he didn’t wait for us to come to him with our need, he took care of it before we even realized we needed him.

It doesn’t end there though. Jesus died, and three days later He rose from the dead. Sounds impossible right? Jesus is the Son of God, not just a good man, a teacher or a prophet. Jesus proved who He was by raising up from the dead. Through Him we can know God because Jesus paid for the sin that separated us from God.

The First Step

Knowing about Jesus isn’t enough. Each of us has to accept what Jesus did for us. Imagine you were dying of some horrible disease and the doctor came into your hospital room and told you that he had the cure. Knowing about the medicine would not cure you. You’d have to take it for it to affect your condition. It’s the same thing with God’s love and Jesus’ sacrifice, unless we own it, it cannot save us.

Owning what Jesus did is agreeing with God that you are a sinner. It’s not an easy thing to say. But as any recovery program will tell you, you have to own the problem before you can start to fix it. If you were back in that hospital room and told the doctor “I don’t need your medicine, I’m not sick” he wouldn’t be able to do much for you. You need to agree with God that you need Him in your life and that there is nothing you can do in your own strength to make up for your sin. That’s the first step.

The Second Step

The Bible tells us that if we accept what Jesus did for us, our sins are forgiven. Psalm 103 verse 12 tells us “as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” “Transgressions” is just another word for “sins”. Think about that, ‘as far as the east is from the west’. That’s pretty far.

What Next?

Accepting Christ does not transform you into a perfect person. But it does take you from being a condemned person and sets you free. You and I will keep sinning, but because our relationship with God has been restored we can go to him and ask for forgiveness and strength to make better choices. We can be assured that when we do sin and honestly seek forgiveness we will be forgiven.

You may have heard of a version of the Bible called The Message. The Message tries to put the truth of the Bible into more modern English. The Message explains sin and forgiveness this way:

But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.

With the barrier of sin gone, we can have the relationship with God that He wants for us. This relationship promises strength for today and eternal life, being with Him forever, after death. All you have to do is accept this gift in faith by and act of the will. The doctor is there with the cure, you just have to take it.

How do I accept Jesus?

The final step is a prayer asking God to come into your life and make you the person He wants you to be. Prayer is just talking to God. There is no right or wrong way to do it. God is not concerned about the words that you choose, he cares about the state of your heart. He hears you. You can pray a prayer something like this:

Jesus, I want to know you personally. I know that I am a sinner and that nothing I could do can make up for that. Thank you for dying in my place and paying the price for my sin. I know that my sin doesn’t separate me from God anymore. Thank you for forgiving me. I know that you love me and that I will spend eternity with you. I want you to be my Savior. Come into my life and take control, make me the person you want me to be.

God invites you into relationship with him. He is ready to welcome you home.

“So is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”  (Isaiah 55:11)

God speaks with a purpose, but sometimes it can be hard to know what that purpose is. Knowing the ways God speaks will help us determine if He is speaking to us, and what He is saying.

God speaks in various ways. One is called general revelation: through the world he made (water, colors, animals, etc.). This way of speaking will most likely come through something you enjoy about nature. If you love water and are amazed by its beauty and power, chances are God will speak to you through water.

He also speaks through His Word and the Scriptures. When God says who He is and what he desires of his people in the Scriptures, that never changes. Those recorded words can and do speak to humanity forever.

God also speaks through his people, the Church. Gifts of prophecy, encouragement, and exhortation can be God-given signs and messages that are often delivered on a very personal level.

God, thank you for speaking. I marvel at the many ways in which you speak to your children. Holy Spirit, keep me attentive to the ways in which you are speaking to me. Amen.

Questions: How might God speaking to you? In what ways can you be more attentive to His voice?

Take the next step:

Restore your self-esteem
Take a lesson: How do you define yourself?
Discover your destiny 

Are the people in your house about to embark on another set of New Year’s resolutions?

1. Commit. You might take a step or two in the right direction, but until you are committed, chances are you might turn back. Don’t forget that in order for Providence to move, you have to make that leap of faith first.

2. Get the facts. Gather information. Study. Try to know as much as possible – and more – about your mission.

3. Start doing it in some way or form. Goethe said: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can…begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Where you are right now is a good place to start. Mother Teresa started caring for the poor when she saw a need at her front door. Joan of Arc started in her hometown. You might find that your purpose lies closer than you think.

4. Know that there will be obstacles. You will encounter opposition, often from within your own heart. Doubt and disbelief have a way of creeping in, often almost in-noticeably. That’s why it’s so important to write down your discoveries, as well as confirmations and encouraging words as you go along.

5. Get a goal. “Boil your mission statement down to the single most important goal or task,” advises Jones. Then, take steps to achieve it.

The Chinese proverb reminds us: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Mary Kay, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, said one of the smartest things she ever learned was to write a list of the six most important things to be done the next day.

6.Ask for help. You’ll be amazed at how many people are ready and willing to either help, or if they can’t, direct you to someone who could.

Take the next step:
Start over this year and determine a fresh purpose for your life.
What if you could fulfill your deepest yearnings this year?