There are several outstanding athletes in the London Olympics 2012.  Two of them are Usain Bolt who won the 100m race in 9.63 seconds.  The other is Michael Phelps who is hailed as the greatest Olympian ever.  He has won a total of 18 Olympic gold medals.  They are definitely talented athletes.  But talent is only one of the success factors.  The Straits Times writes that “for the first time in two decades, he did not need to set his alarm to get up before dawn and stuff his swimming trunks in a bag and head to the pool.”  It takes a lot of discipline, sacrifice and body shattering hard work to be an Olympian gold medalist.

In the same way, if you want to succeed and receive praise and eternal rewards from God in your service to Him, you must work hard and be fully committed.  Thus Paul once urged his disciple Timothy (2 Tim 2:3-5):

Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.  No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer.  Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor’s crown except by competing according to the rules.

There are several things that you need to realize.  First, you have a responsibility to work hard to earn a living and to take good care of your family.  But when you need to choose between pleasing God and pleasing man, you must choose God’s business over anything and anyone else—you must put God first in your life.

Second, putting God first in your life does not mean, however, that you will, as a consequence, not be able to fulfill your responsibility to your boss or family—you can.  The trouble is we sometimes choose to please man more than we should out of fear or out of greed.  We refuse to believe that it is more beneficial to please God.  The other reason may also be due to a lack of wisdom.  Whatever the reason, Rom 12:1-2 tells us how we may know God’s will in any situation:

Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer you bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.  This is your true and proper worship.  Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.

In other words, if you want to know what you should do such that you do what is right before God and also fulfill to the right extent your responsibility to your family, boss, etc., the first thing you must do is to resolve in your heart that your decision in this matter must please God.  Then God’s word promises you that you will know God’s will because He will guide you.

God’s will is revealed through His infallible word, the Bible.  Turn to the relevant passages—if your problem concerns money, read the passages that talk about wealth, and if marriage, read the appropriate sections.  God also shows us His will through godly people: “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed” (Proverbs 15:22).

May the Lord strengthen you that you may have faith and strength to always seek to please God first in your lives.  Then you would not have wasted your precious life.