Reaching New Heights

I have come to realize that it is God's intention to offer everyone the opportunities needed to continually advance their lives toward reaching ever increasing levels of glory. However, we must choose to pursue what is right and take advantage of every chance to listen to the guidance of the holy spirit. The amount of God's favor in life will directly correlate to how well we follow his directions leaving our battle with free will to ultimately determine the amount of blessings we will experience during our lifetime.

Throughout my past struggles, I personally experienced God's unrelenting attempts to bring me back into his glory. Unfortunately, I repeatedly ignored his presence in my life and avoided following the blatant path back to righteousness. As I continued to choose a life of misery, I continued to be harassed by a small nagging voice deep within my conscience. It was not until after I decided to follow Christ that I was able to acknowledge that this voice was God living inside of me. He knew my greatest weaknesses, my embarrassing faults and my inner most secrets... and he also knew how to relieve the burden that accompanied each of these areas.

Upon listening to God's guidance, I began to notice that one door of blessing eventually led me toward another door of opportunity. I was experiencing favor in my life that just a short time ago seemed forever out of reach. All of the sudden, things in my life that I had been putting off were coming to pass one by one, and the problems that had haunted me seemed to disintegrate into a future of endless possibilities. I noticed that every step of faith and open gesture of obedience was rewarded with a deeper understanding of God's plan for me and an increasing feeling of grace.

Today I pay attention to the voice inside me and avoid becoming so busy and self directed that I miss what God is attempting to say to me. I act on his guidance and have learned to immediately address the issues he brings to light. By living in this way, I have learned to expect his blessings and honestly the more I look for his favor in my life, the more I find. God wants nothing more than to see everyone reach new heights, but it is completely up to us to make the decision to follow him to the next level.