Transcript:
Hello, welcome to Walking in Step with God. I am Steve McDonald. Today we explore the topic ‘Find Your Place’ as the next installment in the series ‘The Grand Narrative’
In this series, we are exploring all the ways that our lives can play a role in God’s grand design.
So far, we’ve learned that we can approach God at any time, for any reason. If we havent spoken to God for our entire life, be that 30 years or 60 years, we can approach Him. We can approach Him regardless of what we’ve done in our past. There is absolutely nothing we can do that would separate us from God’s love.
Yes, the world has structure and laws, and we may find ourselves dealing with the consequences of wrongdoing, but in God’s eyes, His love never wavers. We can always come to Him, whether it’s for the very first time or the hundredth time.
We also talked about ways that God wants to show up for us in our day-to-day lives. Yes, we approach Him in prayer for specific things in our hearts, but God also loves to bring favor into our lives just because. He can and will bring favor into our lives in numerous ways. God may show favor throughout your day in small things that some might call luck or coincidence. He may also show favor in complex things that will shape the path of your day, your week, and even your life.
God will even give favor to us when it’s undeserved. Why? Because we have a loving God who loves us so much; much more than we can realize or imagine.
In today’s message, we’re going to focus on how we find our place in -His- plans and design for the world.
God has a plan for all of us, and He has a grand design for the entire universe. How can we show up in God’s design? What can we do to be aligned with His plans and His purpose for us?
I’ve said many times, and I truly believe, the sooner you can find your God-given plans and purpose, the sooner you can live a joy-filled and abundant life. Yes, you can make your own plans, but God’s plans are truly perfected for you. The sooner we get to know Him, the sooner we can truly understand who we are in Him.
Before we get started, if you are watching on YouTube, I would immensely appreciate it if you could click that like button and subscribe. I also invite you to share your comments throughout this program. Your engagement truly helps us share God’s word with more viewers. If you are listening to our podcast, please be sure to follow us and leave a rating for this episode. Your feedback helps us reach more hearts seeking spiritual nourishment.
I’ll be right back.
Welcome back. Let’s continue our discussion of ways to find our place in God’s grand design.
Find Your Gifts
Depending on your stage of life, you may or may not have discovered your gifts. In other words, things you know you do very well.
I knew at a relatively early age, in my teens, how much I loved computers, and I’ve been working with them ever since. I learned even earlier in life that I loved to build things. My mother has remarked about me spending hours and hours in a corner of a room, creating all sorts of structures and buildings with blocks. This love of building would go hand in hand later in life with my love of computers and writing software, which came as a natural progression for a desire for building things. By middle age, I had become an expert at building as a software engineer. I know for certain this is my gift, or at least one of my gifts.
You may have a similar story of things you loved to do when you were younger that have evolved over time. It’s great if you know your strengths and have a good idea of your gifts, but here is the reality: we only know a portion of our gifts. We only know a part of what God has truly planted within us. I don’t believe we can naturally know and discover all of these gifts without Him revealing them to us.
The first area I’d like to cover today, as we look to find our place, is finding our God-given gifts. I imagine that the gifts we are aware of are only a small portion of our true, God-given gifts. When we learn of our God given gifts, we can truly know our potential. God plants gifts within us that play a vital role not only in how we show up in the world, but also in allowing us to know His best-laid plans for us.
How do we find out what our God-given gifts are? By asking, of course.
I don’t know about you, but whenever I’ve purchased a car, after months or years I often find new surprises from bells and whistles I never knew were there. Why? Because I never bothered to read the manual. We are often the same way: we stumble upon some of the gifts God has planted within us, but only God knows the master manual for each and every one of us. If we don’t ask God to reveal what there is to know, we will go through life without knowing our true potential.
We might as well ask the source, the Creator, the one who made us. We can pray and ask God to help us recognize our gifts with a true desire to follow His plans, and I believe God will find unique ways to reveal our gifts to us.
Ask God today to reveal all the gifts that He’s planted within you. You may be very surprised about what you find.
Find Your Community
Now that we have started a journey to learn about our gifts, I think the next logical step is to find our community.
What exactly do I mean by this? Depending on your stage of life, you likely have some type of social circle: friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, or acquaintances. Be that as it may, there is a community out there that will allow you to be nurtured and supported, letting you and your gifts be a shining light. It is a community where God knows He can use you to help others in need, and where you can be supported to learn, grow, and receive the wisdom needed to fully prepare you for God’s plans.
Much like your gifts, you may already belong to a community (or even multiple communities) that you have become a part of organically through your workplace, school, place of worship, or all of the above. While you may be part of a community, you may not yet know the community that is best suited for you and all of your gifts. You may not know the community that God knows is part of your plan.
Just as we did when learning about our gifts, let us turn to God and ask about our community. Let us ask Him to help direct us to the place where He knows we will flourish and thrive, and where we can be a shining light to others.
This community could really be just about anything. It may be directly related to your gifts, or it may not. It may be a community meant to give you guidance and wisdom, without forming deep personal relationships. It could be the complete opposite: a place where you provide wisdom and guidance, support others, and build strong personal relationships in the process.
Whatever your God-appointed community or communities may be, ask Him to reveal them to you. Ask Him to order your steps and provide breadcrumbs to lead you to this sacred place, and God will make the directions clear and plain in a time and manner of His choosing.
Find Your Purpose
So far today, we’ve talked about learning the scope of all our God-given gifts and how important they will be in how we show up in the world. We’ve also talked about finding a community where we can take these gifts and either grow and strengthen them as a recipient of wisdom, knowledge, and support, or use them to help provide that same wisdom, knowledge, and support to others.
Either way, I believe God knows the communities we are meant to be a part of, serving as a critical piece of how we show up in the world. With this information, we can now turn to God to ask Him to reveal our place in the world and the plan He has perfected for us. We can ask Him to reveal our purpose in life and how we take part in His grand plan.
It’s a little daunting to wrap your head around, isn’t it? We may be tempted to think we are just a single person among billions and billions of people in the world, so there is very little we could do to be part of God’s plan, given He created the entire universe. I can tell you, I’ve learned firsthand that this thought is untrue.
I admit that before I found God, I definitely had this view. Whatever plans I believed I had were limited to what I wanted in life: the house I wanted to live in, the car I wanted to buy, the friends and family I wanted to spend time with. Yes, I knew there were things going on in the world, but that wasn’t my problem; someone else could handle those things.
Now that I have put God first in my life, He has revealed a much bigger plan for me, one that I believe I am at the early stages. It is unfolding in such a way that I wish I had turned to God earlier in life. But that’s okay, because God can make good out of any situation.
I truly believe that my speaking to you right now is part of God’s plan. I believe He has a plan and purpose for me to plant this ministry and to bring this message and our mission to every corner of the world. Whether it’s me personally who does it or others in my place, I believe my place in God’s grand plan has a purpose to touch many hearts and lives all over the world in ways I would have never dreamed of. I still find it mesmerizing.
As a matter of fact, it reveals that God can do anything with anyone. Yes, there are billionaires on Earth who have many ways to affect parts of the world with their wealth, using it to touch communities and cultures in positive or even negative ways. I am not a billionaire, but God is -still- using me to touch hearts and lives around the world.
Isn’t that amazing? He can do something just as impactful with you, even if you don’t know how and even if you don’t believe it can be done.
Humbly ask God to reveal to you your purpose. Know that as He reveals it to you, it may not seem logical. You may say to yourself, “I don’t have the money to do that, or the knowledge to do this, or the connections to make that happen.” These things are not for you to worry about if God’s design is for you to have this purpose. God will make a way. He will bless you with the wisdom you need and give you the resources, the means, and the pathways to accomplish this purpose; you need only to decide to act.
God is providing me with the means, mechanisms, and wisdom to grow this ministry, and He will do the same with you and your God-given purpose. Trust that God knows infinitely more about you, your purpose, and every single detail that might be involved.
Your purpose may play itself out over a number of years, entire decades, or maybe even your entire life, but God knows how to bring everything together on a timeline that He knows is best.
Are you ready to find your place in the world? Ask God to know of your purpose today.
Wrap Up
In today’s message, we dive into what it means to find your place in the world.
First, we talked about what it means to find your gifts. Nearly all of us know our strengths and the things we enjoy doing. But only God, as our Creator, knows all of the gifts He has specifically planted in us to achieve our purpose in life. You may have gifts within you that you would have never imagined. For example, if you had asked me 10 years ago if I would be doing videos on YouTube, I would have laughed hysterically, then told you that I didn’t have the skill to record myself on camera, let alone be on social media. Yet here I am, on every single social media channel, recording videos about God. In the same way, you may have gifts planted within you by God that you would have never dreamed of or imagined. Don’t sell yourself short: God can do amazing things with everyone.
Next, we talked about our community. We naturally find communities through our networks: friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, and so on. I believe God knows the communities we are best suited for, perfectly aligned with our God-given gifts. These are communities where our gifts can provide others with support, wisdom, and a guiding light on how to show up in the world, or where we can be the recipient of support, nurturing, and wisdom. While we may personally gravitate toward communities aligned with our own interests, God may lead us to spaces we might not otherwise seek out, which serve a specific role for our gifts and our purpose.
Lastly, we talked about our purpose. Finding our place in the world is uniquely aligned with finding our purpose. When we learn our purpose, we see how our God-given gifts and communities act as a catalyst for helping us carry out God’s plan in the world.
I would not be talking to you right now had I not asked God to show me my gifts, my community, and my purpose. Every one of you listening or watching has a God-given gift, community, and purpose. The sooner we learn this, the sooner we can live a truly abundant and joy-filled life. I believe God puts a purpose on our hearts that gives us a new level of satisfaction and joy. I can speak for myself to say that this ministry gives me so much joy, and I do it without hesitation.
I truly believe that there is a purpose for each and every one of you, and all you need to do is approach God to show you the way.ou are and ask Him to reveal to you all that you are in Him.
Are you interested in discovering more about the guidance offered in this message? Learn more in the companion article Going Deeper with the Word: Find your place
