Becoming the "me" we were meant to be is – well – a life long journey. And sometimes, it's not until we stop to look back, that we can really see God's hand in all of that.

If I want to ask you, what's your destiny, what were you put on this earth to achieve to do, what impact are you meant to make on this planet of over seven billion people, what's the point of your life and is it heading in the right direction? I wonder how you'd answer those questions.

I ask those questions of people rather a lot and can I tell you the number of people who have a clear sense of their destiny and purpose and direction, well it's less than 5%, maybe one in twenty maybe. Now I'm not saying that we should each have our lives completely mapped out. Things happen along the way, there are twists and turns in life that are totally unexpected. The little things can change the whole course of a life.

I remember a long time ago now I was really sick one day with a high temperature. I was scheduled to speak at a function the following day but I was so sick. I should have rung up and cancelled. The next day came and I was still so sick and yet deep inside me I felt I should go. I did and that was the day I met my wife Jacqui. It turns out that that was the only day I would have ever have met her in the place. Going and speaking on that day despite my sickness completely changed my life. I wouldn't be married to her today had I stayed at home.

Just the other weekend a good friend of mine Paul, a magistrate, was swimming in the surf. It was a normal day, I'd chatted with him by sms an hour or two before to invite him over for dinner that night. A wave picked him up crashed him on his head in the sand, paralysed him and they found him floating face down in the water.

They only just got him in the nick of time. He survived, all's well, he can walk and everything but I'm sure that one experience has changed his perspective on a few things in life.

So we know things like that can happen. We can't map out our whole lives in the minutest detail and say, "yep that's what it's going to be", and yet deep down we need to have a sense of destiny. Another way of putting it would be a sense of the direction our life is meant to be headed and that destiny is invariably tied up with two things, our dreams and our abilities and skills.

If you're one of the majority – one of those people who hasn't yet cottoned on to the direction in which your life was always meant to be headed – then this is for you. Can you remember the dreams you used to have for your life when you were young? Can you? There are going to be some dreams that, well they were never going to fly.

If you're short and slightly dumpy and you were dreaming of becoming a famous basketball player, well that one was obviously never going to happen but so often there's a dream in people's hearts that's been there all along.

Here's a conversation that I've had so many times with people about this question of destiny. We get to talking about the direction which their life is heading and the person says to me something like this, "but you know I'm sure there's meant to be, I don't know, something else. Something that, I don't know, I'm meant to be doing but I don't know what it is."

Does that sound vaguely familiar? So I then ask them, 'well if you had no constraints, if money wasn't an issue, if you could be anything or do anything that you wanted what would that be?' And the answer invariably comes back along these lines. "Oh, oh, anything I want? Well you know, I've always dreamed of ... " And then they tell me the answer, they tell me about their destiny, it's already there, it's woven somehow into the fabric of their DNA.

Now of course there's a risk that this is a short dumpy basket-baller kind of dream and so then I follow up with my second question. What are the things you really enjoy doing? What are the things you're really good at?' Most people can tell you that and what I've found is that in more than 90% of cases their dream and their natural skills and giftings are an almost perfect fit.

You know something we've just discovered their destiny, we've just discovered what they're meant to be doing with their lives and the tragedy, I mean the absolute tragedy is that deep down they probably already knew that. So what held them back? The constraints we all put on our lives.

Do you remember my first question? If you had no constraints, if money wasn't an issue, if you could be anything or do anything that you wanted what would that be? See that question removes the constraints. Then all of a sudden people can look at things the way they're meant to look at them, through the eyes of freedom.

For almost twenty years I was a high priced IT consultant but there came a time of dissatisfaction, time where I really came to the conclusion that I wasn't fulfilling my destiny through making lots of money. Over a few years the opportunity emerged to do what I'm doing now, produce these radio programs and use one of the few natural talents and gifts that I've been given, to be a communicator, to bring hope and change and transformation to people's lives through these radio messages.

But that meant taking a risk. It meant confounding people's expectations of me. It meant leaving a big salary behind and going and working in a small, at the time, ailing not for profit organisation. It's a decision that both Jacqui, my wife, and I took together and those constraints and expectations and the money thing and the risk thing, all of those, I have to tell you, were difficult issues to navigate, it wasn't an easy decision to make.

It was at the time, for me, a huge leap of faith. You know I look back on it now and this is what I know, it's always like that when we have to make a decision as to whether or not we're going to go out there and fulfil our destiny because destiny requires courage, the two seem inextricably linked when we step on the destiny journey.

There's always a risk of failure and yet there's nothing as fulfilling and energising as living out your destiny. These last years doing what I'm doing now there have been some real challenges and real tough times but I tell you I wouldn't swap them for anything and in pursuing this destiny here's what I know.

The only person who can make it happen in our lives is Jesus. Now some may scoff at that, come on Berni, people have achieved great things without Jesus. Yeah okay, there's plenty of evidence of genius and achievement out there in the world, people are capable of some amazing things but here's what I'm absolutely certain of, here's what I know beyond any shadow of doubt.

Jesus, the Son of God, when He laid His glory aside, when He became one of us, He came into this world with a destiny. His destiny was two fold, it was to reveal God to us, to speak of God in a personal language of a man in a way that we could understand and secondly it was to die on that cross and rise again to give you and me the free gift of eternal life.

And without that Jesus who fulfilled His destiny for you and me, you and I well may well be able to achieve some amazing things but we will never achieve anything of eternal value or significance.

Because of my gift of communication I can hold people's attention. I can make them think, laugh and even cry but without Jesus, without His story, without His grace I have nothing of eternal value to impart because He's the one that saves, He's the one that transforms, He's the one that brings new life and my destiny lies in Him to be who He made me to be, to do the things He made me to do so that His purposes will be achieved.

And my friend your destiny, your true destiny lies in Jesus too. He has plans and purposes for your life that He came up with even before you were born and when we give our lives to Him, completely, wholly, fully, without constraint, without limit, without reservation, then we discover our destiny.

Let me tell you, it's a perfect fit your destiny with who He made you to be. How do I know that? Psalm 139. Go and read it – His Word, His truth, your destiny.