Skip to main content

Let this serve your plan

As I have grown older, time seems to pass faster. The "ebbing" of a new day seems to be upon me before I even realize that the old one has passed me by! There is one truth that endures through the passage of time - God's Word is dependable! For some, this goes without saying because they have adopted the Word of God as a standard by which they live their lives. They have tested it and found it to be "a sure thing". There is another truth that I think we might miss if we are not careful, but it is equally as important - everything serves God's plans!

What you say goes, God, and stays, as permanent as the heavens. Your truth never goes out of fashion; it's as up-to-date as the earth when the sun comes up. Your Word and truth are dependable as ever; that's what you ordered—you set the earth going. (Psalm 119:89-91)

You have probably been told that change in inevitable, and that would be true. As much as we can count on the "permanence" of God and what he says, we can count that nothing (absolutely nothing) escapes his purposes and plans for our lives - even where change is occurring. This should give us hope that the events of yesterday prepared us for something we face today and the occurrences of today will prepare us for the challenges of tomorrow. Sometimes we think events are "random", or that they could not serve any real purpose in our lives. If we take to heart what God says here, EVERYTHING serves his plans!

Sometimes I think we find the reliability of God's Word easier for us to trust than the assurance that God is at work in the midst of the present events of our messed up and chaotic day! We doubt his "awareness" of our circumstances - - thinking that maybe these "events" have "popped up" without him really being "in the know" about them. We can never forget the fact that God is divine - he has no limitations when it comes to being all places at all times, knowing all things that are known,even though we do. We have a hard time with these concepts because we are trying to grasp them from a purely "human" perspective. At best, we can catch a glimpse of the divine - God giving us insight one moment in time into the events - that glimpse into what he is doing serving to bring us peace and assurance that all is in his hands. We don't really "live in" the divine, so we have to learn to "trust in" the divine! Trusting that he does have an awareness of everything that happens - nothing escaping his plans - this is how we are to live.

We don't know what each new day holds for us, but we do know this - - God has been in control all along, he remains in control today, and he has full control of tomorrow. There are plans bigger than our understanding at work in our future - all we can do is trust them to be "worked out" according to his "master plan". We don't see the purpose in many things such as the loss of loved ones, a reduction in income, waning changes in friendships, or an unexpected illness. In our "finite" minds we cannot conceive the plans God has in each of these events - we can only trust the "infinite" perspective of his "BIG PICTURE" view of it all. Know this...

- God has placed you in this season for a reason. Each season serves a purpose. Some are times of preparation, others are times of growth. Still others seem like times of coldness and dormancy. Even in those "dormant" seasons, there is work being done. The ground of our hearts may seem cool and blanketed in darkness - just beneath the surface, seeds have been planted and are waiting to take root in just the right season.

- God has designed the friendships you have within this season. They serve the purpose of helping you with the "labor" and the "rest" of the season you are experiencing. You are not designed to face the seasons of life alone - - he has purposefully placed individuals in your life as companions in this walk.

- God has provided for your future. It may not be evident as you look through the "vision" of today, but he sees that "big picture" of what tomorrow will bring. His "vision" is far better than Superman's - he sees right through the present and into the future - not with XRAY vision, but with divine. We need to trust the Lord to lead us by his hand. He's marked out the path - we simply need to follow it forward. Trust the plan. Just sayin!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What did obedience cost Mary and Joseph?

As we have looked at the birth of Christ, we have considered the fact he was born of a virgin, with an earthly father so willing to honor God with his life that he married a woman who was already pregnant.  In that day and time, a very taboo thing.  We also saw how the mother of Christ was chosen by God and given the dramatic news that she would carry the Son of God.  Imagine her awe, but also see her tremendous amount of fear as she would have received this announcement, knowing all she knew about the time in which she lived about how a woman out of wedlock showing up pregnant would be treated.  We also explored the lowly birth of Jesus in a stable of sorts, surrounded by animals, visited by shepherds, and then honored by magi from afar.  The announcement of his birth was by angels - start to finish.  Mary heard from an angel (a messenger from God), while Joseph was set at ease by a messenger from God on another occasion - assuring him the thing he was about to do in marrying Mary wa

A brilliant display indeed

Love from the center of who you are ; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply ; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. (Romans 12:9-12) Integrity and Intensity don't seem to fit together all that well, but they are uniquely interwoven traits which actually complement each other. "Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it." God asks for us to have some intensity (fervor) in how we love (from the center of who we are), but he also expects us to have integrity in our love as he asks us to be real in our love (don't fake it). They are indeed integral to each other. At first, we may only think of integrity as honesty - some adherence to a moral code within. I believe there is a little more to integrity than meets the eye. In the most literal sense,

Do me a favor

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. (Philippians 2:1-4) Has God's love made ANY difference in your life? What is that difference? Most of us will likely say that our lives were changed for the good, while others will say there was a dramatic change. Some left behind lifestyles marked by all manner of outward sin - like drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, or even thievery. There are many that will admit the things they left behind were just a bit subtler - what we can call inward sin - things like jealousy,