When I went to a young adult group at my hometown church a few years back, I had conversations with several of the guys my age. Most of them in the 17-20 year range. As each of the conversations went, we talked about what the plan was after high school.

Each of them had said something along the lines of “I’m going to go after this job or college degree because I’ve heard you can make pretty good money doing it.”

There were different variations of it, but this was the basic idea. Something that would allow them to make good money to live more comfortably.

One of my favorite quotes:

“Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on Earth.” ~ John Wesley

In his quote, notice John Wesley doesn’t even mention the word money. He doesn’t say that “if they have the money and support will shake the gates of hell.” Money is no object to God.

I see so many believers making life decisions based on what the best job is. This is not altogether a bad thing. Especially if you have a family to provide for it’s important to make sure you are doing that. However, the problem I see arises when the focus is so much on the job and making money that there isn’t any attention paid to spiritual growth. Where physical and financial growth is put up front and spiritual is put on the back burner.

As Christians (and really as humans) we are made to live in a community. Having a Christian community around you to live life with you and encourage you in your growth with Christ is SO important. So many kids my age and younger are making their decisions not based on where there are other believers there to challenge them but on where THEY can grow the most. They separate their growth and the growth that comes from following Christ.

What if the next big decision you made you made purely with the motive be to know Christ better and to help make him known better? Maybe that means taking a lower-paying job so that you can free up more time to spend in your neighborhood. Maybe it’s moving to a place that has less cool things to do but has a great community of believers who are active in the community. Maybe it’s just spending your time with those who are going to encourage you in Christ and push you to pursue Him instead of the things of this world.

If really all we desired was God and to make Him known, I agree with John Wesley. Can you imagine now an entire city of believers who had this desire? Our communities would change so fast.

Let vision, not provision, drive your decisions.