If you know anyone in high school,
or if you are in high school right now,
you know that there is an incredibly pressuring decision
that anyone who is in high school has to make.
And there's a question connected to that decision
that if you meet someone that you don't know very well
who's in high school, that's the question you ask them.
Ironically, it's the same exact question that gets asked
of people in high school
when you love them and you care about them.
And that question is simply as this.
So what are you going to do with your life?
In other words, what college are you going to go to?
What major are you going to study in that college?
And there's this pressure on high school students
before Christmas of their senior year.
So a lot of them aren't even 18 yet
to find out exactly what they're going to do
with their life, for the rest of their life.
That's tough.
I mean, think about it for a second.
A bank does not trust someone who is under 18
to make financially-wise decisions.
Won't give them a loan.
But yet you can go off to college
and spend tens and tens of thousands of dollars.
The US government will not allow
someone who's under 18 to vote in the election.
Don't trust their judgment skills.
But yet we ask someone who is under 18 to figure out
everything they're going to do with their entire life.
There's a lot of pressure that's there.
Now I bring this up for three reasons.
I want to give peace.
I want to speak peace in the hearts of anyone,
about to go into high school, in high school
who's facing this decision.
I want to give you encouragement.
If you know someone, love someone in high school,
give you some words of wisdom.
And then finally, the third one, I'll tell you later.
So here's the advice.
The advice that I give to high school students,
I work with seniors all the time in high school,
and I see that pressure on them.
And this is what I tell them.
When it comes to choosing your college
or the career path you're going to go on,
you are choosing a direction, not a destination.
Again, you're choosing a direction to go, not a destination.
And the reason I know that is absolutely true
is about 75% of college students change their major
when they get to college.
They think they're going to go to this and they study awhile
and go, oh man, that's not what I thought it was.
And they change their major.
About 75% change their mind.
And then when a college student graduates,
and they got a degree in finance
or a degree in teaching or a degree in engineering
or whatever it is, about 75% of those college students
go into a different career path, a different field.
Now I'm the math doctor, but that's not a high percentage
of people who are in high school,
choose a career, stay that career for their entire life.
So you're choosing a direction, not a destination.
If you know someone who is in high school,
you can give peace to their heart, patience to them.
As they're making this career path choice
of using those words, you're choosing a direction,
not a destination.
And finally, this is the third truth
I want to speak to everyone.
If you are over the age of 18 and you changed.
You changed your major in college, you change jobs.
If you changed jobs last week and you're going
man, I failed.
You didn't.
You made the best decision you had at that time.
You planned your course of action, but things change.
And if you involve God in that decision, you didn't fail.
I repeat, you didn't fail.
That's absolutely what God says
here in the book of Proverbs, verse 16.
I want to speak this peace, this truth into your heart.
If your pathway changed, you didn't fail.
God is with you.
So have that peace, have that comfort in anything.
Whether it's the choice you make with going off to college,
whether it's a choice to change career paths,
whatever choice it is ahead of you.
You're picking a direction, not a destination.
And when you know that truth it's going to give you patience.
When I was little and I was growing up,
all I ever wanted to be was a doctor.
That was my plan.
There was nothing else that was going to change that.
In fact, I was taking Latin in high school
because I wanted to become a doctor
but then God changed my course.
And I became a pastor.
So rather than saving people physically,
I'm using God's word to save them spiritually.
What changed for you?
When you were little, what did you want to be
and what did you actually grow up to be?
Would you share your story in the comments below
of how God changed your course of action
and the blessings that are there
to give encouragement to those younger people
who go, I don't know what I'm going to do with my future.
It's okay.
As you go, God will go with you.