It's amazing how little things take on such importance. Ocean liners are towed by small boats. Sophisticated mainframe computers are useless without tiny micro chips. A smile or kind word can make all the difference in the world in human relationships. Today I'd like to look at a simple little key to discovering your destiny or marching orders in life. Jesus talked about it in His Sermon on the Mount when He said:

"Ask, and God will give to you. search, and you will find. knock, and the door will open for you. Yes, everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who searches will find. And everyone who knocks will have the door opened. If your children ASK for bread, which of you would give them a stone? Or if your children ask for a fish, would you give them a snake? Even though you are bad, you know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more your heavenly Father will give good things to those who ask him" (Matthew 7:7-11).

God is the source of all knowledge and power and we are totally dependent on Him to guide and sustain us. The bridge that God has erected between His sufficiency and our need is our commitment to humbly seek him. The key to knowing what God has planned for our life is to ask. And notice what Jesus says about the way we are to ask: We are to continue asking, continue searching, continue knocking, until the answer comes. In the Greek language these words are in the indicative mode which is linear in nature. We are to "keep on keeping on" until we receive God's answer.

The God of the universe has promised that He will faithfully answer every sincere, persistent request. But God doesn't like casual or non persistent followers. We can't seek Him half-heartedly. When I was nineteen years old, and on the verge of making the most important vocational decisions of my life, the Lord led me to set aside a day to fast and seek Him. I had been praying for over a year regarding His will for my life.  Early one morning I went to a favorite secluded beach and began to pray. I lifted up my options before the Lord. I read Scripture for hours and determined that I would not go home until God had spoken to me.

After nearly eight hours, I felt led to turn to one particular Scripture. Then another and another. They all contained precise confirmations that I was to go to Europe for missions training. A month later I left for Germany. For thirty-five years now I have served in missions. How glad I am that God clearly guided me. How glad He was that I asked.

Another time in my life I found myself in New Zealand, when a spiritual leader named Blythe Harper spoke to me regarding future ministry. While addressing a room full of people and their families, he spoke of the future. He then looked directly into my eyes and quoted Jeremiah 29:11-14:
 
"I say this because I know what I am planning for you," says the Lord. "I have good plans for you, not plans to hurt you. I will give you hope and a good future. Then you will call my name. You will come to me and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will search for me. And when you search for me with all your heart, you will find me! I will let you find me," says the Lord.

The words hit me like an arrow. The God of the universe wanted to tell me His plans for my life. How could I reach Him? By searching for Him with all my heart. If I did, He promised, on His infinite word of honor, that: "I will let you find me." From that day on, I began to ask the one that knows it all. As I have sought Him with a whole heart, He has been faithful to make His plans known to me. It has not always been easy nor clear. But by seeking God I have found Him, and in Him, my destiny.

The Apostle Paul said of us all: "God began by making one person, and from him came all the different people who live everywhere in the world. God decided exactly when and where they must live. God wanted them to look for him and perhaps search all around for him and find him, though he is not far from any of us: "We live in him. We walk in him. We are in him." (Acts 17:26-28).

The simple bottom line of learning your destiny is to seek your Heavenly Father with all your heart until you find him. We are not talking here about casual, curious petitions. God is worthy of much more than that. The price of revelation is the cost of developing an intimate relationship.

From this we also learn what is one of man's greatest sins: the sin of prayerlessness. That was my problem for many years. Maybe it's yours too. When so many people lack direction in their lives, they must have neglected to seek God in prayer. Paul said, "He is not far from any of us."  He's as close as a sincere, persistent, wholehearted prayer.
  
Ross Tooley was a young New Zealander with a sense of God's call on his life. One evening, after hearing a message on the importance of seeking God's will for his life, young Ross locked himself in his room and determined that he would seek the Lord. Laying out a map of the world on the floor, he cried out to God,"Lord, I am not leaving this room until you speak to me. I want to do your will. Where do you want me to go? What do you want me to do?"

By morning, he had his message and his destiny. Many fruitful years of ministry were to come out of that one desperate night of seeking God's face. Why don't you begin right now to discover the joy of unlocking God's will for your life by developing an intimate and personal relationship with your Heavenly Father.

As Jeremiah said: "Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it, the Lord is His name, 'Call to Me, and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know'" (Jeremiah 33:2,3).
 
Ask God persistently for his marching orders for your life. Great and mighty things are yours for the asking.