God wants to make the world more like Heaven. And He wants you to help. It starts by becoming the kind of person who can experience the world as more like Heaven.

He wants to make you into the kind of person who can automatically and effortlessly “count it all joy when you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2).

He wants to make you into the kind of person who can automatically and effortlessly “rejoice in the Lord always.”

He wants you to be able to say with the apostle Paul that you have learned to be content no matter what the circumstances.

Such a life really is possible. More on that below.

Then He wants you to help make the world more like Heaven—starting with whatever is right in front of you. If you see a piece of trash, pick it up. If someone needs encouragement, encourage them. If someone needs a listening ear, listen. If someone needs love, love them.
Do what’s in front of you.

From there, focus your attention more and more on the things you do best—your greatest contribution. In his wonderful book *Cure for the Common Life*, Max Lucado describes this “sweet spot” beautifully:

“Sweet spot.” Golfers understand the term. So do tennis players. Ever swung a baseball bat or paddled a Ping-Pong ball? If so, you know the oh-so-nice feel of the sweet spot. Connect with these prime inches of real estate and kapow! The collective technologies of the universe afterburn the ball into orbit, leaving you Frisbee eyed and strutting. Your arm doesn’t tingle, and the ball doesn’t ricochet. Your boyfriend remembers birthdays, the tax refund comes early, and the flight attendant bumps you up to first class. Life in the sweet spot rolls like the downhill side of a downwind bike ride.

But you don’t have to swing a bat or a club to know this. What engineers give sports equipment, God gave you. A zone, a region, a life precinct in which you were made to dwell. He tailored the curves of your life to fit an empty space in his jigsaw puzzle. And life makes sweet sense when you find your spot. But how do you? Where do you go? What pills do you order, class do you take, or infomercial do you watch? None of the above. Simply quarry …

your uniqueness.

Da Vinci painted one Mona Lisa. Beethoven composed one Fifth Symphony. And God made one version of you. He custom designed you for a one-of-a-kind assignment. Mine like a gold digger the unique-to-you nuggets from your life.

When I was six years old, my father built us a house. Architectural Digest didn’t notice, but my mom sure did. Dad constructed it, board by board, every day after work. My youth didn’t deter him from giving me a job. He tied an empty nail apron around my waist, placed a magnet in my hands, and sent me on daily patrols around the building site, carrying my magnet only inches off the ground.

One look at my tools and you could guess my job. Stray-nail collector.

One look at yours and the same can be said. Brick by brick, life by life, God is creating a kingdom, a “spiritual house” (1 Pet. 2:5 CEV). He entrusted you with a key task in the project. Examine your tools and discover it. Your ability unveils your destiny. “If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 4:11). When God gives an assignment, he also gives the skill. Study your skills, then, to reveal your assignment.

Look at you. Your uncanny ease with numbers. Your quenchless curiosity about chemistry. Others stare at blueprints and yawn; you read them and drool. “I was made to do this,” you say.

Heed that inner music. No one else hears it the way you do.[1]

Imagine a world where everyone did this—where everyone did the good that was right in front of them, where everyone focused their efforts at the intersection of their gifting and the world’s need, where everyone learned to be the kind of person who could count it all joy and experience life like Heaven.