Once, there was an immigrant shop keeper whose son came to him one day complaining and said, “Dad, I don’t understand how you run this store, you keep your accounts payable in a cigar box, your accounts receivable is on the spindle, and all your cash is in the register. You’re never going to know what all your profits are.”

The immigrant, shopkeeper, father, said to him, “Son, let me tell you something. When I arrived in this land all I owned was the pants I was wearing. Now your sister is an art teacher, your brother is a doctor, and you’re a CPA. Your mother and I own a house and a car, and this little store. Add that all up and subtract the pants and that is your profit.”

I love this story. Where have you come from? What has God done in your life already? How far has He brought you? Who has He enabled you to be around? What do you have now that you never had before?

Be grateful.

Be grateful for what you have, where you are, and who is around you!

¹⁹Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. -John 5:19

Did you ever do something you wanted to do or go somewhere you wanted to go, or get something you wanted to get and you didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as you should have?

When it comes to writing my own story, I’m very specific about what I want, my goals, my bucket list, and what I need to do. However, I’ve found that without seeking God about what to do, all of my striving and accomplishing will be in vain. I’ve done things I thought were going to be awesome, when it my heart I knew I shouldn’t, and I ended up not enjoying an experience at all.

The Bible says that the Blessings of the Lord makes one rich, and HE adds no sorrow to it. In other words, God is the only one who can enable you to truly enjoy your life and your experiences. Jesus only did what God told  Him to do, and as a result – He did everything He was supposed to do on earth.

The Bible says God will give you the desires of your heart, if you delight in Him. So whether you’re setting goals, planning a vacation, making a career move, or whatever else may be on your heart this year, make sure you know it in your heart it’s something God wants you to do. Because if it’s not, you’re going to get a second-class experience.

Over the holiday break I read this book by Donald Miller. Then I read his new year post and was inspired. Donald talks about the stories we write with our lives. He said this in his book:

“The ambitions we have will become the stories we live. If you want to know what a person’s story is about, just ask them what they want. If we don’t want anything, we are living boring stories.” -Don Miller

I’ve come to recognize that most people who are doing things with their lives that others envy, do them on purpose. They write their own stories. They set a goal, go after it, and have a story to tell after they accomplish it.

My question to you is, what stories do you want to tell at the end of 2010?

Maybe you want to:

• Run a marathon
• Travel somewhere that you’ve never been
• Take up biking
• Read 25 books
• Serve people less fortunate than you on a consistent basis
• Mentor people younger than you
• Get mentored by a great leader
• Go to the Superbowl

I don’t know what your desires and ambitions are. What I do know is that the only way you’ll write a stories worth talking about, is by writing them on purpose.

Take a day with your calendar and a journal and write out what you’d love to do this year (even if it seems outrageous) and make a plan to do it. Be specific – set a date, and go after it.

What stories do you want to write?