My grandson fully dressed in cap and gown proudly walked across the stage to receive his diploma. He was now officially graduated from pre-school. As he received his diploma he was asked one question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Without hesitation he clearly stated, "A prophet." The audience applauded his choice and he joined the rest of his fellow graduates, who had aspirations of being firemen, horseback riders, rock stars, mommies, and policemen.

A couple days later I asked Samuel why he wanted to be a prophet? Without any hesitation he said. "The Bible says I am going to be a prophet." Later in the week Samuel told his mother that her name in the Bible was Hannah and that his dad's name was Eli. I realized immediately just how much the Bible story of Samuel had influenced his thinking and his idea of what his destiny was going to be.

Wouldn't it be great if we could go to the Bible and find our names and a list of what is expected of us in the future. Our names would be the foundation we would build on from the moment we could understand what we were suppose to be in life. There would be no more guessing when we arrived at our senior year in high school as to where we would go to college or even who we would marry. Everything would already be laid out and the door would be waiting for us to open it into our predestined future.

Unfortunately this is not how this world works. We don't know our futures and as a result we often stumble as we open and shut doors along our journey. We make wrong choices in work and the people we marry. Even when we have a plan and our future all laid out perfectly, something comes along and veers us away from our path. Things we can't plan on, like a sudden death in the family where you become responsible to take over the family business. Or, heaven forbid, you become sick and must go through life or death treatments that may or may not work.

In fact, our world has been set up so we won't know our future. We are destined to be challenged in every aspect of life because we have a purpose that goes beyond this world. We are being prepared through what we go through in this world to reign as brothers with Jesus. The only way we can attain God's goal for our lives is by being tested through a corrupt and fallen world. A world ruled by Satan. A world where we will be tested to our very ability to endure.

Isaiah 6: 8-10, "Then I heard the Lord say, 'Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?' I answered, 'I Will go! Send me!'
So he told me to go and give the people this message: 'No matter how much you listen, you will not understand. No matter how much you look, you will not know what is happening.' Then he said to me, 'Make the minds of these people dull, their ears deaf, and their eyes blind, so that they cannot see or hear or understand. If they did, they might turn to me and be healed.'"

Everyone is destined to walk this world without the benefit of knowing their futures ahead of time. Why does God do this? Because we are here to achieve goals that can only be attained when we interact with each other in an imperfect world. When we live in an imperfect world then we can make mistakes. Mistakes that teach us the difference between right and wrong. Mistakes that allow us to understand things we would not have understood without going down a wrong path.

This is the reason why we are blind to our actions until we are in the midst of a wrong path. This is the reason why we are unable to hear the message of God until the right time comes for us to come to Him. God has a plan to teach us to know Him for our benefit at a particular time in our life.

Isaiah 6: 11&12, "I asked, 'How long will it be like this, Lord?' He answered, 'until the houses are uninhabited-until the land itself is a desolate wasteland. I will send the people far away and make the whole land desolate.'"

Our world is a temporary world. It was never meant to last forever because it is full of evil. Satan must be destroyed because he is the author of everything that has corrupted and destroyed people's lives. He is the great deceiver and the tempter of the human race. This is the reason why there are wars, famines, diseases, murder, natural disasters, and every kind of evil. Our world has turned into a desolate wasteland of corrupt and evil people who have turned to follow their own paths separate from God. This is the reason why no matter how much society tries to fix the world and make it better, there will be an Armageddon!

When you live in a teaching world you must find answers through your life experiences. These dilemmas lead you to paths that are designed to help you reach out for more than the physical concrete aspects of life. They guide you to find God and your life purpose. A pull that is meant to pull you out of a wrong decision and put you on the right path that was preplanned for you to travel.

Matthew 13: 16&17, "'As for you, how fortunate you are! Your eyes see and your ears hear. I assure you that many prophets and many of God's people wanted very much to see what you see, but they could not, and to hear what you hear, but they did not.'"

When we reach out to God and accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, a change comes over our lives. We find forgiveness for our past mistakes that separated us from God and we learn a new path that teaches us the difference between right and wrong. This path helps us to understand the Bible and teaches us how to pray for the answers we desperately need. God sends the Holy Spirit into our lives to teach us which path in life we are destined to travel. And because we rely on Him to guide and help us through the difficulty he makes us unshakable by giving us the strength to endure the problem.

John 14: 16&17, "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, who will stay with you forever. He is the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God. The world cannot receive him, because it cannot see him or know him. But you know him, because he remains with you and is in you."

Whenever Jesus refers to the world, He is talking about the people who know about God, but refuse to listen to Him. This is the reason why our world is filled with corrupt and evil people who refuse to listen to the message of God. These people are murders, sexual perverts, and all those who are greedy and selfish.

Ephesians 2: 4-10, "But God's mercy is so abundant, and his love for us is so great, that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience he brought us to life with Christ. It is by God's grace that you have been saved. In our union with Christ Jesus he raised us up with him to rule with him in the heavenly world. He did this to demonstrate for all time to come the extraordinary greatness of his grace in the love he showed us in Christ Jesus.

For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God's gift, so no one can boast about it. God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus he has created us for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for us to do."

If you already know your future then it is impossible for you to learn from your mistakes. God gave us freewill in order to allow us to make some decisions on our own. But don't mistaken freewill as complete freedom. God has the ability to reign us in at any given time through the bad and the good things we experience. He allows us freedom as long as we are headed in the direction that He planned for us before we were ever born.

God is always in control. He always knows what we need and He is able to give us all good things. But our future is in His hands and He determines what we need to know when He wants us to know it.

My grandson has wonderful aspirations, but his goal should be everyone's goal. We should all pray to be prophets of God so we will not fail to achieve the goals that God has for our lives. We are here for a purpose and without God being number one in our lives we have already failed. Pray for God's will in your life and you will always follow the right path.