Have you been asking God to show you his purpose for your life? Have you been seeking his call?
When I was at Bible school, preparing for the mission field many years ago, I was blessed by having a clear and confirmed call on my life. Knowing that call freed me up to focus on my studies. Many of my fellow students, on the other hand, were distracted by the anxiety of not knowing where God was leading them. Rather than peacefully folding their hands in prayer, they were fretfully wringing them.
Don’t get me wrong; it is not as if I hadn’t worried about where God was taking me in the past. As a matter of fact, I had anxiously struggled with my calling – ducking, dodging, twisting and turning, often, I think, to avoid submitting to God’s claim on my life. For more than thirty years I jumped from job to job, even switching careers more than once, thinking I was exploring options, in charge of my own destiny.
I have discovered that God does not tell us where he is taking us until he has prepared us for the task. If at any time, even when I was in Bible school, God had told me he was taking me to Bangladesh to lead a team to manage a Bible school in the absence of a principal, I would have said, “No way!” I would not have had the strength, faith or vision needed.
In fact, looking back, I can see how all the various jobs I had and the different careers I experimented with contributed to my ability to do the job God was calling me to in Bangladesh. It was as if God was using my own restlessness to prepare me for his purpose. My only regret was that I did not do those previous jobs to the fullest of my ability and thereby gain even more capacity to do his job for me even better.
If you have been seeking God’s will and purpose for your life, rest assured that you are where he wants you. Where you are now may not be his ultimate plan or purpose, but it may well be a step he is using to prepare you for the future. Therefore, work with him on that by doing your work as if unto Christ.
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men. Colossians 3:23 NIV