“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” {Philippians 3:14}
I spent most of my life pursuing my own dreams. It wasn’t like I was trying to be Jonah either, trying to run away from God. It was just that I thought I could put God’s plans off while I pursue my own dream first. Then when I was all done pursuing whatever it was that was going to make me happy and rich, I was going to do the work of the Lord. Fresh out of college I told the Lord that I only needed three years to do my own thing and then I’ll be His. Two and a half years later I was so miserable I quit my job. For the next six years I was the Lord’s. I spent time in His presence and in His word and doing church work. He healed me from a lot of emotional and spiritual problems, and in the process I wrote and composed worship songs and Sunday School songs. Then things got financially challenging and I felt that I needed to get back to work to help make ends meet. So I made another promise to the Lord, I told Him, “Just let me work five years and I’ll be yours for good.”
Well, here’s the thing, I had a plan in that five years. I planned on going back to school and get my degree in Music that I started years ago. And I thought, I’ll become a teacher and I’ll do the Lord’s work after those five years. I even thought the Lord was on the same page with me and would actually support me with this. I thought it was a great plan, but the Lord didn’t think so. I kept getting, “This is not necessary.” I didn’t believe it was really Him that was telling me this. I thought it was necessary for me to get a degree so I could get a really good job and do His work. I thought doing music was where He wanted me. I always felt that is where I belonged. But see, I was coming up with my own dream – not His. I thought this is His will for me, yet never ever even asking Him if it was. I just assumed this is how He is going to bless me. How small my aspiration was compared to His. How little did I know God then.
I was so miserable in my job that I couldn’t even have the mind to fill out the application to go to college much less drive there and go to classes. The only thing I could do after work was go straight home, eat dinner, and spend the rest of the night reading His word and being in His presence until it was time to go to bed. I was so miserable in my job I needed His strength to face another day. In the morning I woke up two hours before I had to leave for work so that I could have an hour to spend with Him and get some strength to face my day.
I thought and thought about my own dreams, but couldn’t get near to it. The process of my own pursuit brought me so much anguish and sorrow to say the least. There were times I wished I was dead. By the time the five years was up I was finally sold out to just give my heart and soul and wait for whatever God had planned for me. I don’t know why I was always afraid to ask for His plans concerning me, and just wait on Him to bring it to pass. I was always thinking I knew better than God what would make me happy. I had this thought that God’s plan will probably make me unhappy. What a scare tactic of the enemy! I am so glad that God’s love for me surpasses all my fears. I am so glad that God wouldn’t give up on His dream for me and didn’t allow me to pursue my own dreams.
I realize now after spending a few years in the presence of the Lord that being a music teacher would have made me utterly miserable. Doing music is where I belong that is true, but writing worship songs and singing to Him everyday is more fulfilling to me than anything in this life. Being a music teacher in a classroom would have stressed me out everyday. As time goes by the Lord reveals to me more and more what His plans are for me, and I am glad to say that it is way more than what I have planned for myself. Again, I am so glad He did not give up on His dream for me.
I think we all do this. We all try to find our own meaning of happiness by our own selves, as if we know what it is and where to find it in this life. Our society has given us this road map to happiness that if we just go to college, find a career, get into a good company, get married in the interim, have kids, make a lot of money, that we will be happy. Yet, so many of us continue to go around unhappy even when we’ve finished college, gotten a good paying job at a good company, and are married with kids. We continue to feel unfulfilled. Why? It’s because we are all trying to find our meaning and sense of fulfillment by our own understanding and by our own wisdom. We don’t go and ask God for help and guidance and then wait on Him. Think about it, who can know us better than God? No one. He is the one who made us, and therefore He is the only one who knows exactly what career or lifestyle we should be pursuing that will give us the utmost joy.
So many of us are trying to figure it out without the help of God. And then when we do ask Him to help us and guide us, we jump ahead without waiting on Him to further show us where to go. So many of us, like myself, assume in our own little world that is all that God can do for us. We’re afraid to hand our dreams to the Lord and believe in a greater dream that He actually has for us. We continue to be so unhappy because God alone can bring the dreams we are longing for. He alone can satisfy and fulfill the longings of our soul.
God actually has a dream for each and every one of us to fulfill in this life. If we want it He will reveal it to us. We don’t have to keep despairing about our own dreams that keep failing us. I have heard of people going from one job to another, from one degree to another, trying to find their purpose and their meaning. Yet, if we will all just spend the time to talk to Him and ask Him to reveal Himself to us, and ask Him instead what His dream is for us, we will find that this is actually what we are looking for. This is actually what we should be pursuing after. He has made each and every one of us for a purpose and when we find His purpose and His meaning He will reveal to us what our dreams are. He will reveal to us what we were made for in this life.
I didn’t get it then, but I get it now – that God is the fulfillment of my dream. He is my purpose and my happiness. All these years whenever I was miserable or feeling unfulfilled, I knew that if I just spent the day with Him I will be all right again. It never failed to work for me. Each and every time life gets sorrowful and unbearable and I spent the time with Him, He always came through for me. He always comforted me. His presence always gave me the rest I needed and the meaning in this life I was looking for. I don’t know why I never would accept it before, but I have come to accept it now: He is my reason for living.
I went around thinking I had to come up with my own dreams to find meaning and happiness in this life. But really, God had placed His purpose and His desires in my life even before I had known Him. Even as a child I had always had the desire to know who God is. I always thought He was good but wished for so long He would acknowledge me and know who I am. Of course, I didn’t think I was good enough that God would actually care to know who I am. I didn’t know that you didn’t have to be good to be loved by God. I thought it was just a saying that He loves the worst sinner. Growing up I even despaired that God would actually make Himself known to me. I had this belief that God didn’t know who I am or cared a whit for me. Yet to think, all those years when I thought these things, God actually had a plan to reveal Himself to me down the road. He actually would reveal to me the meaning and purpose of my life. He knows what will make me happy.
I should have quit stressing myself out on what my purpose and happiness was going to be – what my career was going to be. Today I have found that my meaning can only be found in Him. That true happiness can only be found through Jesus Christ. He gives the deepest joys and deepest satisfaction that the pursuit of financial success and fame could never give. I have found that the more I pursue the Lord the more He reveals to me my purpose. His dreams surpass any dreams I could ever come up with for myself. To think I was ready to settle for what this world has to offer me! How I would have missed out on so much more if He had allowed me to pursue my own plans. I don’t mind losing my own dreams to pursue God’s dream. He has been showing me that what He has for me is way more than I could ever imagine for myself. The dreams and the visions He has been showing me lately confirms that what He has for me will definitely hit the pinnacle and fulfill the purpose of my life. There is no looking back for me. I want what God has for me. I am moving forward.
He alone knows the best calling for us. He alone knows what will make us happy. His dream alone will bring us the utmost happiness and meaning in this life if we learn to pursue who He is.
“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” {Philippians 3:8-9}
“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.” {Philippians 3:10}
“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” {Hebrews 11:6}
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” {Philippians 3:13-14}
