A:
One thing my family and friends know about me is this: I’m a planner! I thrive on lists and calendars (preferably color coded, with bullet points). I attempt to arrange everything in my day down to the smallest detail. But what God has been teaching me is that He doesn’t operate based on my plans! I have no way of seeing into the days that lie before me. I can’t predict what the Lord’s plan for my life will look like, and I certainly can’t control it. I just have to trust my future to Him. Even when I can see how God has worked in my life in the past, it doesn’t give me a guarantee about how He’ll work in my future. The truth is, just when we think we’ve got God all figured out, He just might decide to throw us a curveball!
When I was in graduate school, I was in my prime of obsessive-compulsive planning. I was married and getting my master’s degree in community counseling. My husband was happy, I was happy, and I had our future all planned out – complete with bullet points and highlights. My list looked something like this:
- Justin would continue in his job, which he enjoyed and felt God had called Him to.
- I would graduate and continue to work toward my counseling license.
- I would then, most assuredly, hire on with some amazing community counseling clinic, where I would inevitably be overwhelmed with clients.
- On the other side, I would finish my online seminary degree in order to satisfy my desire to go into full-time church ministry someday.
- Sounds like a great plan, right?
Except that I ended up walking across the stage to receive my degree with some slightly different circumstances than I’d expected. As I trotted proudly across the platform in three-inch red heels, not even my puffy black graduation gown could cover up my seven-months-pregnant belly! It didn’t take long before my color-coded, bullet-pointed list was scattered, drooled on, and stomped on by the new little addition to our family.
That was only the beginning of how God’s plans started diverging from mine. Now, several years (and another drooler) later, I am still finding pieces of highlighted paper here and there – under the bed, taped to the fridge, between the couch cushions. I guess I’m still learning my lesson!
It goes without saying that nowhere in my neat lists of life plans did I intend to enter public ministry after spending time in the pit. If someone had mentioned the idea to me back then, I’d have declared her certifiably crazy. As if I wanted to stand in front of people and tell my story! And besides, I was convinced that no one would listen.
I don’t know exactly what God has in mind for my own life, let alone for yours. However, if we can start believing what we do know of God’s plan for us, we will soon find that the parts we don’t know really don’t matter all that much anymore. In order to take yet another step in transforming our present, we must presently believe in God’s ultimate plan for our lives.
In my years of following Christ, I have come to the conclusion that many Christians make finding God’s present will for us way too complex. We wrongly believe that it’s only possible for the most talented and most gifted and the most spiritual to know the heart of God. But in reality, it’s much simpler than that. If we long to see God at work in our present, we merely need to grow in our daily longing for Him.
In recent years I‘ve come to realize that spiritual growth is not so much a to-do list or an attempt to master the external mechanics of Christian living. It’s more about humbly placing ourselves before God in order to be changed. I have tasted the true liberation of basking in the sheer privilege of having access to the Lord of Lords, and I’m never going back. The daily privileges that go along with this include reading and meditating on God’s Word, communicating with the Lord through continual conversations with Him, daily confession of my fleshly desires, repentance, service to my family and the church body, and corporate worship.
These are privileges we must intentionally pursue each day. And trust me, the reward is greater than any sacrifice you might make.
All Things for Good
Trust me, friend, God’s plan for your life is far better than anything you have thought up or imagined. His purpose is twofold: to bring you good and to bring Him glory. The following passage from Scripture is packed with truths about what God has designed for our future:
We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love ;him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. (Rom. 8:28-30)
God is working in every area of your life, not just isolated situations. He cares about every detail! There is nothing too little or too big for God to handle. Case in point: have you ever consulted God before you make a phone call or had a conversation with someone? Whether it’s a brief chat with a cubicle-mate or a lengthy talk with Great-Aunt Melba, whom you haven’t seen in years, do you ask God to work through you in that conversation? Maybe you assume that God doesn’t care about such tiny details of your life. Oh, but He does! He cares about all things that take place in the lives of His children. He has also delicately orchestrated the grand, overarching themes of your life.
When God states that He is working for your good, it doesn’t mean that everything that happens in your life will be good. He is looking at a bigger picture than we are – our eternal future. He is working out His good in your life to bring you into a closer relationship with Him. Bad things happen because evil has invaded every corner of our fallen world, but God can work good out of even the worst situations. God isn’t always working to make you happy, but He is constantly moving toward completing His ultimate purpose: making you into a more accurate image bearer of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Are you beginning to believe all God has in store for you? Once you let it sink in that God has a good plan for you right now, you will begin to see a total transformation of your present condition. As the past hurts begin to heal, they will gradually begin to fade into distant shadows, leaving you to face today. And your future depends on your current belief system.
Take your list of life plans, wad it up as tightly as you can, walk over to the trash can, and chuck it in. It doesn’t matter how detailed your plan was or how long and hard you worked to compose its contents. Throw is away! There are no man-made lists that could come close to standing up against the plans your Father has written down for you on His heavenly tablet. In my mind, I picture the Creator God using one hand to reach out and form a majestic mountaintop and the other hand to hold a notepad with your name on it. Oh, and I don’t think it was just a blank piece of paper – it was no doubt highlighted with hues of colors yet to be seen by the human eye and bullet-pointed with the stars! “’I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future’” (Jer. 29:11).
Reprinted with permission from Named by God: Overcoming Your Past, Transforming Your Present, Embracing Your Future by Kasey Van Norman, Tyndale Publishers.
