Where does this promise find you today? Are you a graduate or someone else seeking God's purpose and direction for your future? Are you struggling with a hard place and wondering why? Perhaps a word of advice may help.

Many years ago, I was part of a worship planning meeting on the Monday after an especially powerful worship service on Sunday. We were all discussing the reasons why the service had been so moving, and looking for ways to make the next week's worship experience equally successful for those who came. Then one of my best friends in the world, a man who had helped us start that service years earlier, smiled and said something I've never forgotten: "It's not about us."

He was so very right. Life is not about us. This is Babylon, not the Promised Land. We are subjects of the Kingdom, servants of the King. When we surrender our lives, plans, and agendas to his purpose, asking only how we can serve Christ as our King and help others make him their King, then we find his "good, pleasing, and perfect" will. Then we walk in his purpose each day.

We must lose our lives to save them (Matthew 16:25). We must surrender them to live them. We believe that he is redeeming all that he permits or causes. When last did you submit completely to the plans of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? When next will you?