I recently spent an afternoon with a young man as he was sharing about his search for personal direction. In his attempt to discover what type of life God wants for him, he’s hoping that he will eventually find happiness and contentment. I truly respect anyone (especially a teenager) that is trying to do the right thing and willing to invest the time it takes to search until they find it. I remember a few years ago reading about another young man named Guiseppe, who was also trying to find his place in the world. His parents had come to America from Sicily and his father was from a long line of fisherman (no pun intended). His father was very proud and considered it an honor to carry on this profession and expected all of his sons to continue just as all the generations before. The problem was that even though Guiseppe wanted to please his father, the Sea and the smells of dead fish made Guiseppe nauseated. Instead of this type of work, he had a passion to play sports. Sadly, throughout his teenage years, his father was very disappointed and constantly declared Guiseppe was lazy and would grow up to be good-for- nothing. Nevertheless, in spite of the emotional hurt and pain, he continued with his vision and surprisingly ended up more successful than anyone in his family could have ever dreamed. You may have heard of him, his full name was Guiseppe Joe Dimaggio.

So, how can we begin to pay attention to our divine blueprint and become more enlightened to what God’s will is for our life? We begin with a desire to know what our heavenly gift is. Everyone is influenced by good and evil but we also have been given the capability to select the default or the divine. As we are constantly making these choices let us remember that God will not force us to follow His instructions. For example, we know that praying is the most powerful spiritual action we can take, but to what level are we willing to persevere in order for prayer to become an essential part of our life? It would be such an inspiration if we could grasp how God has planned a wonderful destiny for us and now waits for us to not only see it but also to become determined to accomplish it. When we become serious about our destiny, we notice right from the beginning that our level of desire will ultimately measure how successful we will be. We have heard the old saying that, “if we can dream it – we can build it” but may we also be reminded there is no substitute for hard work and no such thing as an overnight success. Herman Melville is quoted, “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” We can reach for the stars but the purpose of our destiny is not necessarily for our pleasure or glory but in order that we might fulfill HIS plan.

Dr. Holland lives in Central Kentucky with his wife Cheryl, where he is a Christian author and community outreach chaplain.