When you first came to know Jesus, your heart was probably filled with sharp, clear purpose. You experienced God's healing love and, like many new Christians, you longed to share it with others, evangelizing and serving. As you moved forward in this new life, you began to better discern your role in God’s kingdom and your gifts for serving him.

You may be in a storm right now but on the other side of that tumultuous sea is a bank of God’s blessing and a deeper miracle. We see the secret of this in the book of Acts when we look at the life of the apostle Paul.

“This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).

Many in the church today try to determine the nearness of Christ’s return by reading the signs of the times; for instance, the return of the Jews to Israel. Jesus clearly states that the end will come only after the gospel has been preached to all nations as a testimony.

Good ideas are not always “God ideas.” We see this in the life of the apostle Paul: “Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them” (Acts 16:6-7).

The Old Testament tells us of Jacob, a deceiving, conniving, cheating man — whom God loved dearly! His life is filled with marvelous lessons for us about God’s dealings with human nature.

Destiny, in simple terms, is God’s purpose for your life. It is your appointed or ordained future. We read of many godly men and women in Scripture whom God chose for a destined work or ministry but they ended up aborting his plan. They started out right, moving for a while in the power of their calling, but in the end, they died in shame and ruin, missing God’s destiny for their lives.