The Path Of Life

You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

—Psalm 16:11

God made each one of us, and he has designed a path of life for each of us, as distinct as our fingerprints. The pleasure you think you’ll get if you buy this or that thing—that pleasure actually comes along the path, with God. The joy you want to feel that makes you run from experience to experience—burning yourself out, missing your own life—that joy is found in God’s presence. It was here all along.

I’m learning this firsthand. I thought I knew what would make me happy. And I pursued it. God, in his grace, keeps bringing me back to the path of life that he has chosen for me. The things I thought would make me happy don’t. And the things I’ve been avoiding for years are giving me life, hope, and peace in ways I could never have imagined.

The God who made us, on purpose and for a purpose, with great love, has laid out a path for your life, and for my life. When we live faithfully on that path—small and ordinary as it may be, different than you planned, not at all what you dreamed—we will live with peace, joy, and fullheartedness.