Stop Making Your Life More Difficult

In life we are going to face challenges and experience hard times.  That’s just life.  But what sense does it make for us to invite additional hard times and difficulties into our lives?  Why would we would do this?   Why would we make our paths more difficult than they need to be? 

Well truth be told this is exactly what we do when we choose to be out of alignment with our purpose.  You see each of us has a purpose God has ordained for us to fulfill.  But when we intentionally step outside of this purpose we are inviting nothing but trouble into our lives.

Take Jonah for example.  Jonah had a specific purpose that God wanted him to fulfill.  He was a prophet whose purpose it was to deliver messages from God to the people.  That was his purpose.  And Jonah was very clear as to what His purpose was, there was no grey area.  Yet despite knowing his purpose, one day Jonah up and decided  that he wasn’t feeling it, and because he wasn’t feeling it, he decided it was best to do what he wanted.  And that my friend, was bad! (See Jonah 1 & 2)

What Jonah didn’t realize was that when he chose to step outside of his purpose he was choosing to allow unnecessary difficulties in his life.  Because I’m pretty sure that being caught in the midst of a terrible storm, thrown overboard a ship, and finally being swallowed by a fish was not a part of Jonah’s plan and it wasn’t a part of God’s plan either.  Jonah experienced these difficulties simply because he decided to ignore his purpose.

And I’m here to tell you today that the same will happen to you.  Of course I’m not implying that you will be swallowed by a great fish but I am suggesting that when you make the decision to work outside of your purpose you are indirectly inviting trouble into your life.  Because your purpose and it’s fulfillment is so important to God that He will allow some unpleasant things to occur in your life.  He does this so that He can get your attention and so that you won’t get comfortable operating outside of His will for your life.

We all experience difficulties but the difficulties we experience because of our own choices are the difficulties that tend to sting the most.  Nothing feels worse than knowing that our troubles are a direct result of our own actions. So today I want to encourage you to stop making your life more difficult than it needs to be.  If you know your purpose and you understand clearly what God has specifically called you to do, do it.  It doesn’t matter if doesn’t make sense to you or if you can’t figure out how it will all work out.  Take the leap of faith and do what God has called you to do trusting that his path is the right path.  Jonah lost three valuable days of his life sitting in the stinking belly of a fish.  What are you willing to lose, how many days, weeks, or years are you willing to waste in difficulties because you are outside of God’s purpose for your life?