02.23.04

I will praise You with my whole heart; before the gods I will sing praises to You. I will worship toward Your holy temple, and praise Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; for You have magnified Your word above all Your name. In the day when I cried out, You answered me, and made me bold with strength in my soul. All the kings of the earth shall praise You, O LORD, when they hear the words of Your mouth. Yes, they shall sing of the ways of the LORD, for great is the glory of the LORD. Though the LORD is on high, yet He regards the lowly; but the proud He knows from afar. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me; you will stretch out Your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and Your right hand will save me. The LORD will perfect that which concerns me; your mercy, O LORD, endures forever; do not forsake the works of Your hands. - Psalm 138.

How do you know what to do with your life? I grew up on a farm and for hundreds of years my ancestors have all been farmers. There were a few exceptions in that one ancestor was a preacher but he was also a farmer. Another ancestor was a stonemason but he was also a farmer. My Dad has worked as a truck driver, and as a parts man at a tractor dealership but if you ask him what he is - he will tell you that he is a farmer. Being a farmer is all my father ever wanted to be.

How do you know which course, which path in life to take with your life’s work? Are you to be a farmer because all of your ancestors including your parents were farmers? Are you to be a doctor because your father or your mother is a doctor? The same question could be asked for every career path. The next question to be asked is whether that is the plan God has for your life? It may be, or it may not be - but don’t you want to know? So, how are you supposed to know these things? What does God expect of you? How do you know if you are on the right track with your life?

In times of uncertainty Psalm 138 can give you comfort and assurance especially verse eight. Verse eight in the New Living Translation says, “The Lord will work out his plans for my life.” This verse tells you that you do not bear the whole burden of making every single thing happen in order for God’s plan to be worked out in your life. God will work out His plan in your life but there are some conditions. Verse eight does not mean that you are to live without ambition or without any sense of direction or that you just wander aimlessly waiting for God to make a way for you. What it means is that if you do your best to live according to God’s will for your life and then you have the assurance/confidence that He is working to make His plan become a reality for you.

I thought when I was growing up on the farm that I would probably become a farmer when I grew up. However, God had another plan, and He was busy blocking that from happening, and redirecting me to other avenues until I finally arrived at the right one. God was busy working behind the scenes to make His plan a reality in my life.

God’s plan would have become a reality more quickly if I had been more yielded to Him. We know what a yield sign means when we approach an intersection. It means that we are to stop and yield the right of way to any vehicles approaching to your left or right. If we don’t yield, it most likely will result in an accident. The same with God, we are called upon to yield to Him and we will avoid many accidents in our life too.

David gives us three qualities that make up a yielded heart in Psalm 138. In verses one and two, we see David has the quality of thankfulness in his life. In verse six, we see David has the quality of humility in his life and in verse seven; there is the quality of trust. Those are qualities that we would do well to develop in our own lives.

If we do develop a yielded heart made up of thankfulness, humility and trust we will see God’s plan become a reality in our lives. When God’s plan and not our plan becomes a reality, we will have joy, meaning, and fulfillment beyond anything we could have brought about with our own plans. Allow God to work in your life and yield to Him by being a thankful, humble, and trusting person always seeking His will. The beginning point for God to work in your life is Jesus. If you have not done so receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior (John 1:12; John 3:16; Revelation 3:20) and begin living the yielded life.