Working for the Lord and not for the world.

Lately, I've been confused about my career path and what my purpose is and what I'm suppose to be doing with myself and I've been trying to figure it out. I have also been trying to get closer to God and make my faith stronger in the Lord and an interesting thing happened to me tonight. I've been praying and asking God to show me the way and to use me as his vessel. Always I ask myself "what do you want to do with your life?" but the better question I should have been asking was "What do I want to do with my life to better serve God?". We as God's children are spiritual beings living in a physical world. We are in this world but we are not of this world.

Music is my passion and my heart's desire. It is the one thing in my life that I am sure of. It makes me happy when I listen to music or sing. It is the one talent that I have that I can use to praise and worship God wholeheartedly. It is what I would like to pursue a career in as a teacher or a professor or a performer. I believe that pursuing music would bring me closer to God and help in the spread of His word because there is music in Church. I believe that I can interest children in coming to church more often by teaching them the word through music but also by teaching them how to play instruments or to sing. It could benefit them in the long run by having a talent and maybe help them to win scholarships for school.

My parents would like me to become a pharmacist and at first I agreed to it, but now as a third year college student, I don't believe that working as a pharmacist is my calling. As my faith in God grows, I want every aspect of my life to be about and for Him alone. In my opinion, being a pharmacist would not bring me closer to God. It would only push me further away from him. The amount of hours I would need to work in order to pay off student loans for pharmacy school would hinder me from actively worshiping God. More importantly, my life would become more about money than about using my life to serve God and Money is a god that I refuse to serve. Yes, money is an important tool to survive in this world but the most important and top priority should be and is God. My father told me that being a pharmacist would be better as a first degree to help pay my bills and that I could always go back to school to pursue music later. The reality of the statement is that, it is just not possible. Right now I'm 20. In about, let's say, 6 years I would be done with pharmacy school and working and maybe a year or two later I could be married and then maybe a year after that have a kid ( or maybe twins). With all that going on, I wouldn't have the time to go back to pursue music. I would be working to pay the bills and taking care of a family. This means I would have to wait until I'm in my mid to late 40's before I can pursue my dream? No. I simply refuse. God did not grant us a guaranteed number of years to live our lives. At any moment, it could all be over. Practically speaking, I could die at anytime. I don't want to live a life I didn't want, hoping that there will be time in the future to do what I want or what God wants me to do and then die without having done anything to properly serve Him.

My advice to everyone, is to look in their hearts and see whether their chosen path in careers is going to bring them closer to God or move them further away from God. Are you having to or going to have to give up your Sundays of church for work? Are you going to have to give up your days of bible study and helping with Sunday school or helping with the choir for work? How would you feel if God decided that he couldn't help you because he had too much work to do?  Take a moment and just think about it.