God has given us all individual gifts and goals in life. When our desires are human ones, we shouldn’t expect that God will fulfil them. It’s God who determines what our purpose in life is. Even though David’s desire was to build the temple, God told him his son, Solomon, would ultimately build it. David’s job was to raise the money and materials for the project. Also, we can often admire and learn from gifted, successful people, and that’s fine. But we need to avoid trying to copy them. It’s okay to try to implement their good character qualities into our lives and to seek their input, as long as we go to God, the architect of each of our lives, and ask Him to show us His plan for our life. We shouldn’t be trying to be an exact copy of anyone else, because God has made us all unique. In Acts 16, we read about Paul and other believers travelling to spread the gospel. They were trying to go to a place called Bithynia, but the Bible tells us that ‘the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to’ (v.7 NIV). God had other plans for them. ‘During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”  After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them’ (vv.9-10 NIV). God knows exactly where He wants us to go and what He wants us to do. We need to let God set our goals; then we’ll be heading in the right direction.

What Now?

Ever felt God guiding you somewhere, or asking you to do something? Write down what happened, and how you felt.