“What should I do with my life?”
A 16 year old Christian wonders what direction he should take. What do you think?
What is your ambition in life?
When someone asks you "What is your ambition in life?" what do you say? I often reply with something like "To glorify God", and leave it at that, but I often wonder if I am actually hiding away from answering the real question by shoving the "textbook answer" in the questioner's face.
Because, it often nags me - what is my ambition in life, apart from glorifying God?
I am young and the world is an oyster in front of me, isn't it? Or is it like what a Psychology student once told me, "Your options in life are limited to around 3 professions by the time you turn three." Maybe that's exaggerating, maybe I heard wrong, but it does feel true in the sense that I wouldn't make my life's ambition to save nature, since I haven't really been brought up with it.
The problem is, I have so many things I like doing. Reading, writing, blogging, playing in my band, economics, designing, teaching, leading, travelling, learning. But out of these, which are high enough on the list to be my ambitions?
Choosing a door
In my head I imagine God showing me different doors, each with different appealing smells coming out of them. He stands behind me and is waiting for me to choose. It is so hard! Although I don't have to choose my life's specific goal yet, the time I need to make a decision seems to be encroaching on me very, very fast.
But hold on, I seem to have veered right off from the course of my first answer, "To glorify God". It may be a quick answer to get the question out of the way, but it has significant meaning attached to it. It is saying that whatever I do, I want to do it for the glory of God. It means whether I am a plumber or a teacher or anything in between, I want to continue to have God as my number one boss. It is saying my life is not my own, it is owned by the one who created me, saved me, and gives me life.
As Paul puts it in Ephesians 2:10, "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do".
So maybe I shouldn't be worrying too much. I should just keep plodding forward, lifting my eyes towards heaven, and giving God the glory whichever path I take.
Are you in the same situation, or have you been through this before? What do you think? What advice do you have?
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