Direction in Life

We all yearn for knowing the direction to take our lives.  Some of us know, some of us don't know, and some of us think we know and don't.

One thing about not knowing the direction we should take in life is that it is typical.  We see many of the great figures of the bible completely lost for direction.

Often many around us who are very sure of the direction in which they will take their lives end up being wrong.  Life is such that often many of the things we believe will happen don't and many of the things we don't think will happen do.

God has a plan for our lives.  This is true but most people who say it often miss the fact that God's plan may look very strange.

We see a lot of people who appear to be blown hopelessly off course who are likely on God's track and many people who look on course who are completely off track.

You see we don't see many of the details from a distance.  Often there is a great fakeness in the way things are presented.  We can really only know our story and maybe some of the story of a few close friends.

It is often discouraging because many people paint a story of their lives which is untrue.  They are successful with great happiness or so it seems.

Appearance is not always the case.  Success sometimes comes at great cost and some "success" can be built on sand that will slide away.

Always as we walk through life we live out our faith day by day.  Living each day through faith is what we can do.

We will often not know the direction to take in life and that is fine.  Some people may criticise us for lack of direction but they show their ignorance.

Having lack of direction is not abnormal.  If one does not know the way to take it is not abnormal, and it displays a lack of wisdom in people who feel that we must understand our direction.

In a way there is nothing so off track as "knowing" one's direction when one is firmly heading down the wrong path.  If we pretend to know our direction when we don't we often internalize the error and this is a flaw which a great many people live with every day.

John Piper Quote on How It's Possible to Waste Your Life

A bit from John Piper well worth reading:

It is possible to waste your life. Few things make me tremble more than the possibility of taking this onetime gift of life and wasting it. Every morning when I walked into the kitchen as a boy I saw hanging on the wall the plaque that now hangs in my living room: “Only one life, twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last.” And now I am almost 58, and the river of life is spilling over the falls of my days with tremendous speed. More and more I smell eternity. And oh, how I want to use my life well. It is so short and so fragile and so final. You get one chance to live your life. And then the judgment. I speak as a father who has children your age, and I am jealous with Jesus that they and you not waste your life.

One of the great tragedies of American culture is the way billions of dollars are invested to persuade people my age to waste the rest of their lives. It goes by the name of retirement, and the entire message is: you've worked for it, now enjoy it. And what is the “it”? Twenty years of play and leisure. While the world sinks under the weight of millions of healthy older people fishing, cruising, puttering, playing golf, bridge, bingo, shuffle board, and collecting shells. All of this in preparation for meeting Jesus Christ face to face with nail scars in his hands.

And that is exactly the way you will waste your life in 50 years if you do not make some radical decisions now, and set your face like flint to walk another way. Oh, that you might all come to age 65 with fire in your bones, and say, “Now! Now! With my simple pension and my remaining energy and my new freedom I will pour out my life for Christ and his kingdom, so that when I meet him—which I will do any day now—I will smile at his words, ‘well done, good and faithful servant,' instead of those awful words, “Fool! How did all that pointless play put my glory on display?"