Living Out God's Plan For Your Life

Living the Life You Were Meant to Live

-God has a plan for your life-

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the thoughts I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Do you have a life plan? Do you have a life plan that takes you from where you are right now to your retirement years?

#Lucy in a Charlie Brown Peanuts cartoon comic strip said that life is like a deck chair. Some place it so they can see where they are going; some place it so they can see where they have been; and some place it so they can see where they are at present. Charlie Brown replies: “I can’t even get mine unfolded.”

Maybe like Charlie Brown you are waiting to get your LifePlan unfolded.

Another great philosopher on life is Garfield. In one of the Garfield Comic strips

The owner of Garfield says: “I gotta do something with my life.”

Garfield – “Why start now?”

Owner: “I don’t know what to do.”

Garfield – “Do what I do.”

Owner: “I guess I’ll raise my standards”

Garfield – “I’ve lowered my standards.”

Owner: “I’ll be tougher on myself!”

Garfield – “Now I’m easier on myself.”

Owner: “I’ll take on the world.”

Garfield – “I got out of bed this morning.”

Owner: “Who am I kidding?

Garfield – “How do I do it?”

A common questions asked by most people. Why on earth was I born? What am I here for?

I remember thinking those questions when growing up in small town, Gypsum, Kansas -- A metropolitan town of 600 people. As a boy growing up in Gypsum I often wondered why I was having such a hard life. So many people were much better off then we were. We had no indoor plumbing – out bathroom was an outhouse, we had to pump water out of a cistern, when during dry weather carry water from a neighbor’s house, we took a bath once a week in a tub with a few kettles of hot water. Other people in town had indoor bathrooms, hot water and nice cars.

My greatest fun in those days was playing guns. We would cut out a gun from wood and then cut thin round strips of rubber from car tire inner tubes. We would take a wooden clothes pin and wrap the pin on the end of the gun handle with the cut rubber. We would then put a knot in the rubber and put one end in the clothes pen and stretch it over the end of the gun and you have a ready weapon. Open the pin and your shot zings off toward your target. What we had was a former model of today’s paint gun warfare.

For many years I grew up on a small world – Gypsum – population 600 with infrequent travels to Salina, 25,000, McPherson 10,000 population and Abilene for Rodeos population 5,000. When we took a trip to visit my mother’s parents in Kansas City I was over whelmed by the size of the city. On one trip to Dodge City to see my mother grandparents and my great grandparents I was thrilled to visit Boot Hill. My entire world for many years was confined to the state of Kansas.

In discovering your LifePlan there are several questions about life you need to answer.

I. Does My Life Matter?

Do I matter to God? God answers from His Word with a resounding “Yes.” Yes, you matter to me. God made you in the image of His Son, Jesus. God’s plan is that you grow into the likeness of Jesus. God has a plan and purpose for your life on earth.

As a created person you are unique. There has never been another you. There will never be another you. You are one of a kind in the history of the world. The Psalmist sang out in Psalm 139:14 “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.” God created you for a purpose. God wants your life to have meaning.

A life without purpose is a meaningless life. Solomon with all his wealth, a multi billionaire wrote: “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure, my heart took delight in all my work and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 2:10-11.

Only in God’s Word and in the person of Jesus do we find meaning to life.

Proverbs 16:4a “The Lord has made everything for His own Purpose.