Finding My Place

Hear, O Israel: The Lord your God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength, These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your heart…Deut 6:4-8

I have been blessed to be surrounded by great Christian doctors whom I count as friends. More than one minister to the inner city underserved as their full time profession. Others spend their lives in dangerous countries around the world, placing little candles of truth in dark and hostile places. Still other doctor friends of mine champion publically the sanctity of life for all men and the rights of conscience for Christians. Some of my doctor friends spend their lives mentoring residents and students toward a life that honors God and others pour themselves into sacrificial compassionate care for the patients they love, drawing them toward a loving God as they do. Sometimes I want to be each of them and serve my God heroically as they do. How do I choose what my place should be in God’s plan?

God does indeed have an important place in His plan for each of us: a task, a location, a life that moves His great plan of redemption through history. Thank God He is willing to let us be part of that plan. Sometimes we struggle mightily to discover what our part will be. Perhaps this mighty struggle, over which I have expended so much of my energy, is a wasted effort. Perhaps God will place us in His perfect plan for our lives if we do the things that He has made very clear for us to do with this life of ours. I can think of five clear mandates that define the life of a Christian. Perhaps if we adhere to these, our part in His plan will flow naturally from that compliance. God wants us to:

Love---both Him and man
Glorify him---through worship and witness
Seek---Him first and then His will
Obey---the best we can, given the light He has provided
Trust---He knows, He cares and He can

If we love, seek, obey, trust and glorify our God, we may not always see that we are in God’s great plan for our lives, but I suspect that we will be in that plan and our lives will accomplish the purposes for which we have been created. There is a precious freedom in a life so lived.

Dear God,
Let me struggle toward that I know---to love You and my fellow man, to glorify You in worship and witness, to seek You first and seek Your will with each step in my life, to obey all that I can discern is Your will and to trust You, Your plan, Your power and Your love. Let me fight hard against the pull of life away from these goals. And then let me settle into the plan You have prepared for me, confident that You will accomplish.
Amen