Not for your body’s health but for your soul’s well-being is why you’re here on Earth. God has given you this opportunity of time and space to fix whatever needs fixing in your soul, to accomplish whatever needs accomplishing, to finish whatever needs finishing so that you can join him in heaven. Each and every one of us has something different to accomplish, depending on what our souls require. That’s why we are not to compare ourselves with others (in John 21:20-23, Jesus reprimanded Peter for doing just that). Instead, we should simply follow God’s advice.

Keep in mind that God doesn’t need our help in anything (he is all-powerful and perfect), but we certainly need his help. It’s not the length of our life but the state of our soul at death that matters. Like Jesus, we’re not here to live a long and prosperous life, but to finish the mission that God sets before for us (if we choose to accept it) and get out as quickly as we can.

Life is a mission, not a party. The party comes AFTER the mission is accomplished.

God doesn’t need us, we need him. If he wanted to, God could accomplish everything in the twinkling of an eye (which is precisely how long a miracle takes), but he chooses instead to let us “help” him, in much the same way as, for instance, a father lets his toddler “help” him with a woodworking project using a plastic hammer and rubber nails, or a mother lets her child “help” bake a cake by letting him lick the bowl. Again, God doesn’t need our help, but he lets us work alongside him, not only showing us what to do but accomplishing it for us: God doesn’t need us, we need him.

God’s will for my life is not some arbitrary list of tasks he pulls from a hat, but the very things my soul requires in order to go to heaven. I cannot, without his help, know what my soul requires, and I cannot, without his help, fulfill my soul’s requirements. He has to both tell me what I require and strengthen me to do it. And so he does tell me, using words, terms and references that are completely tailored to my individual experience and capacity to understand. He knows me better than I know myself. He meets me where I am and lifts me up to where I need to be.

The gesture of lifting or raising up is central to who God is and what he does for us. We see this most clearly in Jesus’ healing ministry, where he constantly lifts up and raises those who are repentant and those who have faith in him.  From their humbled position of lying, sitting and kneeling, or bent over or lame, they come to fully upright positions of unrestricted movement. This upward motion of God’s healing grace culminates in Jesus’ resurrection and ascension.

We cannot know what God’s will is for us – our soulwork – unless he tells us. Just as God spoke personally, through his spirit, with Moses and the prophets, so God speaks personally, through his spirit, to all who are born-again followers of Jesus. He speaks mainly in words, not signs or symbols (Jesus is the Word, not the sign or symbol).  The voice of God’s spirit is discernible as long as we’re doing God’s will; if we stop doing it, we simply can’t hear him, and at that point are in danger of falling from grace.

I hope you never get there, but if you do find yourself separating from God, get back to him as quickly as you can. God is always – ALWAYS – waiting to help you. All you need to do is ask him with a sincere and honest heart.