This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Everybody Always" by Bob Goff. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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Are you trying to figure out what God’s plan for your life is? How can you work to become love?
According to Bob Goss in Everybody, Always, God knows that you won’t always know how to act or what to do, but he loves you anyway and he wants you to love others. God only has one mission for you and that’s to love the people who are in front of you.
Keep reading to learn what God’s plans for your life are.
The Simplicity of God’s Plan for Your Life
If you’re wondering what God’s plans for your life are, stop searching. When you become love, you acknowledge one very simple truth—we are all with each other in God’s kingdom. That one word “with” is the key to everything. People often feel like fancy prayers or long monologues to God are required to reach him. They’re not. God doesn’t care how dressed-up your language is; what He cares about is how much love you have in your heart and how you show it.
God built a kingdom for all of us to live in, and his desire is for us to build kingdoms within His. Instead, many of us build castles out of the aspects of our lives. Your career, family, friends, and possessions make up the blueprints for your castle. Once you build it, others tell you what a great castle you have, but a castle is not a kingdom. Castles are isolated and protected to keep people out, whereas kingdoms are vast and open to everyone. Kingdoms are created when people come together.
Because kingdoms are open to all people, there will be some you don’t identify with or get. It’s how you treat those people that shows the strength of your faith and love. God knows you won’t always know what to do or how to act, but He showers you with love anyway. You need to do the same for others. You may not understand what others are doing all the time or where they’re coming from in their opinions, but you can still show them love. But you can’t show them love from a turret atop a castle. You must meet them with grace on the ground.
When you see someone trying to build a kingdom by engaging with different types of people, you know that person is becoming love. Their love shines down on everyone equally as respect and deference. They approach people with an open mind and seek to learn from them. Living like God means understanding that we are all with each other, regardless of circumstances. Your only mission in life is to love the people in front of you. When there’s no agenda to your love, it takes on great power. When you become love, you exhibit the embodiment of God and pull people into your kingdom. And within that kingdom built for everyone, you find heaven.
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Like what you just read? Read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of Bob Goff's "Everybody Always" at Shortform .
Here's what you'll find in our full Everybody Always summary :
- How to live your life like Jesus lived his
- Why you need to open yourself up to God's love and give love to others
- How to deepen your faith by focusing on love rather than showing that you "agree" with God
