Should one of our major goals in life be to find a job that is exciting and fulfilling? I'd like to quote from Elizabeth Elliot's book, Discipline: The Glad Surrender:

"Interest and challenge can always be found in any task done for God. If our work seems to be beneath us, if it becomes boring and meaningless, mere drudgery, it may be a living, but it is not living. It is not the life of freedom and fullness a disciple's life is designed to be. Does God ask us to do what is beneath us? This question will never trouble us again if we consider the Lord of heaven taking a towel and washing feet."

She goes on to say:

"I once heard a formula guaranteed to prevent boredom: it is to have

Something to do

Someone to love

Something to look forward to.

The Christian has all these in Christ: work, a Master, a hope. Yet how easily we forget this."

Whoever said the grass always looks greener on the other side knew what he or she was talking about. I believe our enemy, Satan, uses this human propensity to find an exciting job to destroy our joy. He makes us believe that if we had a different, more fulfilling job, every day would be an exciting adventure, never boring, never dull.

So, we plod away in the job we have, or expend much time and energy trying to find another one, instead of looking to God to bring meaning into whatever we do.

Now, I'm not saying it's wrong to want a different type of job, to aspire to other positions, to educate and train yourself for a job you find interesting. Certainly God has gifted each of us differently, and we are at our best when we're using our gifts appropriately.

But if you've been thinking the right job would make you happy, please think again. Only Jesus can do that. Remember, seek him first, and all these other things will be added.

Should one of our major goals in life be to find a job that is exciting and fulfilling? I’d like to quote from Elizabeth Elliot’s book, Discipline: The Glad Surrender: “Interest and challenge can always be found in any task...

I hear Christians talking about being bored and unchallenged in their jobs, wanting to find a job that fulfills them. I wonder if they are looking in the wrong place for the fulfillment and joy they want.

We looked at what Jesus said in Matthew 10:39: “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”

What did he mean by that? He’s simply telling us that to find real fulfillment in life, knowing

that what you’re doing matters and God is pleased, you have to take a different path. It’s an upside down path but it’s the path Jesus says to take—to lose our lives for his sake, and in doing so we find life! We find the fulfillment that has eluded us.

Here’s a quote from a secular book written by Betty Friedan. She began the feminist movement in 1963, fighting for women to be able to hold any job they were qualified for, and when that happened, women would be set free from home to find their fulfillment. Twenty years later she candidly admitted that the search for fulfillment which women thought they would find in a job did not work. Quoting from her book:

Said the vice president of a large corporation: "For 17 years, all I've lived for is that company. Because we wanted so much to get up there, we had blinders on for everything else in life except finally making it on the board. My glamorous career! I hit some deep spiritual crisis, or something, but it wasn't satisfying to me anymore. ...It's a real spiritual crisis, when you reach that plateau and you realize you've gone as far as you can go in that company, that industry, and all those trimmings and trappings you'd been working for all these years, that's all there is."

Can't you hear the disappointment in her words? She learned that fulfillment does not come from a job, no matter how good it is. In the end, they are just jobs, sometimes repetitive and boring. Certainly not totally fulfilling.

But here's the good news: No matter what job we have, as Christians we can do it to God's glory and it therefore becomes meaningful and purposeful. I knew a woman who worked in a large bakery, doing rather repetitive work, but she viewed it as her mission field and God opened many doors for her to share the Gospel with many people, including executives in the company. She never complained about her routine job because she saw it as her opportunity to share the love of Jesus.

You can know fulfillment in the midst of a routine job if you know Jesus and you're doing your work for his glory.

I hear Christians talking about being bored and unchallenged in their jobs, wanting to find a job that fulfills them. I wonder if they are looking in the wrong place for the fulfillment and joy they want. We looked at...

Is your job fulfilling to you? Whatever you do every day, whether outside or inside your home, do you find it fulfills you and makes you feel good about yourself?

Now, here's the next question: As a Christian, is it important that we have a job that is personally fulfilling? Is that our right? Should that have a high priority in our lives?

My answer may surprise you but think it through with me. I think the whole question of fulfilling jobs and careers is a result of the humanistic thinking that pervades our society. We have been subtly led to believe that we have a right to be fulfilled, whatever that means, and that right takes precedence over all others. So, a fulfilling job—a job we like—becomes an accepted and appropriate goal.

Our thinking has been so clouded with self-actualization, self-esteem, and self-fulfillment, that we Christians have sometimes missed a basic truth of scripture: self-denial. If there's a self-fulfillment message in God's Word, I've missed it.

Now, don't turn me off yet. I'm not saying that we have to trudge through life hating what we do, martyrs for Jesus, sad-faced and depressed, because we can't be self-fulfilled. It does not mean that you can't look for a job that interest you, nor is it wrong to enjoy the job you have.

But you see, we keep getting the cart before the horse. We won't find fulfillment in jobs. I know, because I tried for a long time to make myself feel good and worthwhile through my job. I've held lots of jobs in my career, some with glamorous aspects, a good bit of recognition and success. And I'm here to tell you that not one of those jobs ever made me feel fulfilled and complete. Even at their best moments, I knew inside they were missing the mark. And every job had its share of routine and drudgery.

While Jesus came to bring us life abundant, he told us clearly that: “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). What did he mean exactly?

Is your job fulfilling to you? Whatever you do every day, whether outside or inside your home, do you find it fulfills you and makes you feel good about yourself? Now, here’s the next question: As a Christian, is it...

I read a verse in Proverbs 20 that baffled me for a while. “A person’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand their own way? (Proverbs 20:24). But I think I know what Solomon was trying to say to us.

Most of us spend lots of time trying to understand our own way. What will I do about this? Where will I go? What's my next move? What if this happens or that falls through? We have this desire to know exactly what the future holds, and to make certain it's the way we want it to be.

But when we are directed by the Lord, we cannot know our own way. It's one step at a time. We make the immediate move God has placed in front of us, and then he shows us the next move.

Why does God operate that way? It seems almost cruel, doesn't it? Wouldn't it be better if he said, "Now, Mary, here's my exact plan for the rest of your life.” That's what we'd like—and of course, we'd like that strategic plan to be to our liking and our choosing!

But when our steps are directed by the Lord, he gives them to us one at a time because:

It teaches us to walk by faith and not by sight. We have to trust God. And then we become strong in our faith, and that pleases God. Without faith it's impossible to please God.

If God showed us our whole path, we'd try to change it and manipulate it. But God knows what is best, even if we can't see it.

If we saw every step ahead in advance, we'd rebel at some of them. They would frighten us; they would look too difficult. But when God directs us one at a time, we learn little by little that if we're following him, he'll be with us and give us the strength and grace we need. He never gives us that strength ahead of time, but it's there when we need it.

I don't know what my way holds. I have goals and objectives that I'm working toward by faith. But God is ordering my steps. They may turn at any time in an unexpected direction. That's his prerogative because I'm his child and I've chosen to walk his path, not mine. But I don't have to know what tomorrow will bring—and neither do you. All we need is to know that we took the right step today, he's with us, and whatever the step is tomorrow, he'll be with us then.

I encourage you today to let God direct your steps one at a time. It's a whole lot better than trying to understand your own way. You never can, you know, no matter how much you try.

I read a verse in Proverbs 20 that baffled me for a while. “A person’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand their own way? (Proverbs 20:24). But I think I know what Solomon was trying to...

Like many other people, I spent many years “doing my own thing,” as we say, not obedient to God’s voice in my life. Though God in his graciousness has turned those ashes into beauty, how I wish I had not...

Like many other people, I spent many years "doing my own thing,” as we say, not obedient to God's voice in my life. Though God in his graciousness has turned those ashes into beauty, how I wish I had not wasted those precious years which are gone forever. As I look back with God's perspective on that time, I now recognize that the underlying problem in those ten years was that I was afraid to trust God with control of my life. Actually, fearful of allowing the God of the universe to run my show. I shake my head now and wonder how I could have been so stupid for so long.

And I look around me and see many other Christians doing the same thing. Many of you undoubtedly are hanging on to the controls of your lives, afraid to trust God, as if to say that you know what's better for you than God does, and you are more trustworthy than he is.

I'd like to try to help you see why you are afraid to trust God, in hopes that you too will let go of your own misguided thinking which is leading you toward disaster. And that you will come to know the joy and peace of a God-controlled life.

My particular fear of trusting God began when, as a single adult, I decided that the only thing that could make me happy was to find the perfect man to marry, and that the worst thing in the world would be to remain single forever. That, of course, was my first mistake. The worst thing in the world for a Christian is to be out of fellowship with God and to live a life of disobedience. But my thinking was being shaped by the culture and my own stubborn desires, not by God's principles.

So, for almost ten years I retained control of my life and all my decisions. Then, through various events that God caused or allowed in my life, I finally came to the end of my rope. I remember well the sleepless night when I finally said, "God, I'll do anything you ask of me, if only you will give me peace. I'll even be single forever.” Hesitatingly I finally exercised a little bit of faith and told God I was willing to trust him. It was obvious that he couldn't possibly do a worse job of running my life than I was doing!

That little bit of weak faith on my part was the beginning of learning to trust God. Through weeks and months of pain, as I watched my hopes and dreams die, he replaced those broken dreams with himself. And in the intervening years, I have learned to trust him more and more, and know the joy and peace of his fellowship. And I testify to you today that God is trustworthy. Furthermore, he's infinitely better at running my life than I was! And interestingly, after more than forty years of singleness—and coming to be totally content with my singleness—God had another surprise for me and a few years ago I was married to a wonderful godly man.

With hindsight, I now ask myself why I did not trust him sooner. And the answer that comes back is that I did not really understand who God is, and therefore how trustworthy he is. Though I had been taught the basics of Christianity from my earliest days and had graduated from a Christian college, the knowledge of God had somehow not gone from my head to my heart.

I want to share with you the three basic truths about God that changed my life, as I began to really understand them. They are simple beyond belief. Undoubtedly, most of you will nod your head in agreement as you hear them. But if you truly believe them, your life has to change, and those fears of trusting God have to go.

Learning to trust God begins by reminding ourselves of his character and power, and then asking ourselves if we really believe God is who he says he is. Here are just a few verses that describe the nature of God:

Isaiah 44:6-8 (NASB) tells us our God is the only God. "Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: 'I am the first and the last, and there is no other God besides Me.