Asking God About Your Future
What will your life accomplish for the gospel?
How can we sit back and just live for ourselves, being content in our salvation, but unpropelled to take it to others? So many people continue in their lostness for generations because so few were willing to go reach them.
Give God Your Future
Many people make the decision for their college major and future career based on what will bring a good paycheck and job security. Some decide based on their interests and natural strengths.
Very few, sadly, ask for God to show them how their future can be used to reach people with the gospel of Jesus.
My husband Jeff went to college to become a civil engineer because most of his friends were going into engineering. He knew it would be a good job.
He grew up in church and had done some summer mission trips. When confronted with the idea of being a long-term missionary, he thought, “Well, everyone wants to be a missionary, so I’ll sacrifice and stay home and work to support others.”
Give God Your Gifts
At a missions conference that year, Jeff heard other students saying they knew God was speaking to them about missions, but they didn’t want to go to a faraway place.
That’s when Jeff had an aha moment with the Lord. He realized that most others did not want to be missionaries, so his desire to do missions must be from God. He began to look for ways to be a missionary using his engineering degree.
I had liked Jeff for three years before that but had refused to date any guy who wasn’t headed to the mission field. When he finally said yes to God’s call, I said yes to him! We spent the next 25 years preparing for the mission field and serving on the mission field.
In Missions Journey: Students, we have talked about how you can use your hobbies, interests, skills, and opportunities not just for your own pleasure, but as displays for God’s message. Hopefully your youth group has planned some outreach events using your hobbies to attract others with the purpose of starting Christ-centered conversations.
Give God Your Goals
God invites you to go a step further. Think about your long-term goals, your career, and even your future spouse.
Do you know about the missionaries who worked across China in the late 1800s? Few missionaries were trying to reach China, so a handful of young missionaries committed to serve there. They spent years living in remote places under difficult conditions, reaching the unreached with the message of Christ.
Their impact was twofold: where they served and in the communities they left behind: In the places they served, people heard the gospel for the first time. In the places they left, thousands committed to follow God’s call, so even more people heard the gospel.
Their efforts were multiplied. They surrendered their own lives to make the name of Jesus famous. Testimonies of these early missionaries have inspired thousands more to spend their lives for the gospel.
Eternity will be different for countless souls. From now on, their example will encourage others to follow in unselfish example.
Obedience has consequences that reach further than we could ever imagine.
I hope their obedience stirs you as it did me. When I saw how many had not heard the name of Jesus, I could not stay home.
Give God Your Now
As you find ways to reach people around you right now, think about how God could use you long term in the future.
Now is your training ground. I pray your life will be lived in a way that shows others that Christ is your number-one priority.
What will your life accomplish for the gospel?
Kim Cruse served for 23 years in the Philippines, sharing the gospel and discipling university students and training them to go out globally to reach the nations. She and her husband, Jeff, take great delight in visiting countries around the world where those same students are now multiplying disciples. Kim and Jeff enjoy everything outdoors, from hiking and biking to scuba diving and kayaking. They are the proud humans of a little dachshund with an overinflated ego.
