Issue date: 11/16/07 Section: News and Opinion

Lately, I have been kind of bummed out. It's that time of the semester when you figure out if you're going to make it out of your classes alive or not. The part that is bumming me out the most are the grades, which causes a lot of other areas of my life to go down as well. Now, I know I mentioned in a previous article that you shouldn't compare yourself to anyone else because God has given us all different gifts for different tasks; I just want to point out that I am not comparing myself to anyone else. This is merely me evaluating myself and realizing what I am capable of doing.

When I fall into this bummed out stage, I find myself asking God if He really wants me to be a Mechanical Engineer. Now I know it's common to go have some uncertainty about your major at one time or another, but even though I like my major to a certain extent, is it what God wants for me in my life? This is one of the biggest questions I have had to wrestle with lately.

There are plenty of things out there that we like or enjoy, but aren't what God wants for our lives. For example, it is so easy for guys (me included) to look at a girl and see only a body that is there for our enjoyment. We look at a girl like this because it is something we like looking at, but are we really praising God when we lust after a girl that is not currently our wife? The answer you can guess is no.

I recently finished reading Every Young Man's Battle (a must read for every guy), and this very subject is addressed in it. It goes on to teach you how to train your eyes so that you can look at a girl as if she is a person, rather than a piece of meat. Even though I still struggle with this a little, I constantly remind myself of Matthew 5:28, which says, "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." God lets us know clear as day that having these lustful thoughts are not what He wants for us.

But back to the question at hand, what does God really want for our lives? I honestly can say I do not know the full answer to this question. I know He wants us to further His Kingdom, and live as closely to Christ as possible everyday, but how do I know if the path I have chosen is the right one for me? The only bit of advice I have heard from friends and books on this subject is to give it all to God, and that's exactly what I had to do. The funny thing is though, I knew this all along because He told me to do so, but I thought that He was asking too much of me. I was dead wrong.

Continued...

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