Realizing God’s Path For You

​By: Kevin Jackson
​@kevindjackson
 
I have had numerous discussions recently with people struggling with figuring out how God wants to use them in their lives. Frankly, I have struggled myself for years and continue to. It’s not that we aren’t trying to be good Christians, but I think we keep asking ourselves “Is it enough?”.

The real question is “What is enough for God?”.  The bible tells us to be guided by the Holy Spirit, strive to be like Christ. But what does that really mean?

First you need to evaluate the various aspects of your life. What you do for work (notice I didn’t say for a living, we will get to that shortly), your personal life, your hobbies, your family, the people you surround yourself with, what you watch on TV, what you eat, etc. etc. Too often people focus just on going to church, praying and trying to be a good person. Although those are terrific and all part of it, it’s not enough.

I like to breakdown my life in 4 categories:

1. Family
2. Friends
3. Fun
4. Job

Now, here is the tricky part, look at all of those and ask yourself “Is God in the middle of every one of them?”. God’s path for you involves every aspect of your life. Although you pray with your family and surround yourself with Christian friends, do you praise God through your work or job? Maybe you share God with your co-workers but when you go to a movie; do you mostly entertain yourself with R-rated violent movies? Frankly we all probably will fail at any combination of the above. It’s ok, we are human, we are sinners. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” - Romans 5:8.

Most conversations I have had revolve around work or jobs. I mentioned above that I didn’t say what you do for a living. Well, that is because too often in this world we focus solely on what we do to generate income. Our jobs define us, our lives, what we do for a “living”. That is certainly the wrong way to look at things. God views us and judges us based on what we do with our entire lives, not just our jobs.

So, to realize God’s path for you, you need to review every aspect of your life and truly live for Christ wholly and throughout your life. That doesn’t mean everyone has to be a preacher or pastor, but bring God into your job. That might mean changing your career to serve God and his children. That also might mean simply being an open Christian and discussing God with co-workers when appropriate. You never know whose life you will change.

So, pray. Pray hard to God to guide you through your life. But remember; bring Him into all aspects of your life. If you look at the above areas of your life that we listed above, think about the order we have them. They are probably listed from easiest to hardest to put God first into. But they are also listed in the most important.

Put God in the center of every decision and every aspect of your life, only then will you realize what God’s path is for you. Pray and listen, He will guide you.