Can we outrun God?

The Lord spoke to Jonah son of Amittai: “Nineveh is a big city. I have heard about the many evil things the people are doing there. So go there and tell them to stop doing such evil things.” But Jonah tried to run away from the Lord. He went to Joppa and found a boat that was going to the faraway city of Tarshish. Jonah paid money for the trip and went on the boat. He wanted to travel with the people on this boat to Tarshish and run away from the Lord. (Jonah 1:1-3)

Is it possible to run from God's calling in your life? Yes! Can you do it with a clear conscience? Nope! The truth of the matter is that we cannot outrun God, nor can we deny his calling in our lives. Those whom he calls are also equipped. The calling may not 'measure up' to what we 'desire' in our lives, such as when Jonah was called to go to an evil city, filled with all manner of sin, to bring them the message of salvation. His desire was likely to see them burn for their sins rather than go right into the midst of their 'filth' and 'depravity'. They were known for their idol worship, depravity, enslaving nations, and plundering the peoples of the land - but God wanted the message of salvation brought into their midst. Can we undo God's will? Nope!

We oftentimes don't understand 'why' God asks us to do what he does, but we should trust he has a bigger plan than we might first imagine possible. A big city - perhaps made 'bigger' in Jonah's eyes because of how depraved they were as a hostile people. Tell them to stop - a hard message to hear when you actually want to make a change in your life, much less when you like the way you have been living! When we are resisting the purposes and plans of God, we will find ourselves struggling with taking the first step of obedience. We might not really want to do what he says, but there is wisdom in taking the first step, even though we don't see the purpose or understand the bigger picture. 

Is it possible to outrun God? Nobody has succeeded yet, so I am pretty sure the answer to that one is 'no'. I had a friend in Bible College that told us of the many months he had tried to outrun God. A drug dealer, dishonest in all his business dealings, and living a hardened life. He recalled how he heard message after message about how he needed to change his life - get right with God and turn away from all the 'bad stuff' he was engaged in. Yet, he ran. While running, he was amazed to see that even the power poles on the side of the road looked like crosses! God won't let us resist forever - he will place reminder after reminder in our path to help us see there is no better way than within his will. Just sayin!

Oh, that is a much better outcome!

People think that whatever they do is right, but the Lord judges their reason for doing it. (Proverbs 16:2)

"Either I will find a way, or I will make one." (Philip Sidney) We all have those moments when we just "feel" like doing something is the right thing to do, so we just go ahead with our plans. There are even times when we kind of suspect there might be a little "issue" with what we are doing, but then we go ahead anyway. Whenever we just move without fully thinking it through, or getting God's perspective on the matter, we are usually pretty disappointed with the results! There are times when we have duped ourselves into believing our actions are fully "justified" by the actions of another. It is like we are saying, "Well, he did this, so I did that" - thinking our actions are "made all right" because of the actions of another. If they don't think about the outcome of their actions that is one thing, but we have the responsibility to think about how our actions exemplify the heart of Jesus, so we may not want to respond without thinking things through!

Whatever we do may not always be "right" - we have to look at the heart behind the actions. The heart behind our actions is what God is after, not just that the actions are "right". We can produce all kinds of "right" actions and still have a wrong "heart" behind them. I can pay my taxes, but bad mouth my government and criticize how those funds are spent. I can wave at my neighbors in a kindly fashion each morning, all the while cursing them under my breath for having a barking dog at night. I can say I love someone, but but be holding onto all manner of bitterness toward them for something they may not even realize they have done. You see, the action can be "right" while the heart behind it is not as "honorable" or "right".

God looks at the "reason" behind the action - the "heart" of the matter. All action stems from thought - thought being influenced by our "heart" as scripture defines "heart" as the seat of our emotions. Try as we might to "think" one way while our emotions are tied up in knots in the completely opposite direction will not make them magically "align". What God wants to do is help us live "above" our emotions - not dependent upon them. We would probably be surprised to find out just how many of our actions throughout the day are totally based on some emotion we are feeling at the moment. Your actions don't always agree with your emotions, but God is after the emotion, not just the action. 

We have a tendency to focus on what we "feel" is important in our lives - God wants us to focus more on what he has declared to be valuable to him. We have a desire to put this right action together with that right action and see right results as the outcome. God wants us to put the right heart behind the actions, then watch him produce the outcome! Just sayin!

Planning to do good

Woody Allen always quipped, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." So true, isn't it? We plan one thing but find something totally different unfolding. Some fool-heartedly believe we are the makers of our own destiny. We are indeed the 'makers' of our own consequences, but are we really the makers of our own destiny? Plans change as life happens. Life choices bring either good, or not so good consequences. A consequence is just the outcome or 'output' of something that was 'input' earlier. You've likely heard the saying, "Garbage in - Garbage out". Nothing could be truer about the plans we conceive and then try to bring to fruition without God's oversight and intervention.

If you plan to do evil, you will be lost; if you plan to do good, you will receive unfailing love and faithfulness. (Proverbs 14:22)

Plan to do evil - lose it all in the end. The consequences may not be immediate, but they will come eventually. Plan to do good - unfailing love and faithfulness are your reward. I don't know about you, but I would rather receive a reward more than a consequence! The more we plan, the less we focus on listening. Don't believe me? When was the last time you listened to someone else's input into YOUR plans? You might not realize it, but the more you plan one thing, the less likely you are to consider anything else. This isn't good when God is trying to get you to a place where he can move you into something new. Your 'plans' may actually keep you rooted in the present, unwilling to consider the freshness that will come when we move away from that plan and toward God's.

Planning to do good doesn't happen by accident. It is a purposeful action on our part, taken time and time again, with a set goal in mind. We want to embrace what God has for us, so we make him the first part of our day. We want to listen to what he has to say to us, so we get into his Word and ask him to show us what he has for us within those pages. We want to have meaningful relationships, so we make the effort to focus on them. If we want a meaningful relationship with God, we must focus on it, as well. Planning to do good means we make active choices all day long to keep God front and center in our lives. When we find our planning takes priority, we need to refocus so he is once again at the center of our plans. Just sayin!

A little improvisation

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not been able to bear children for him. But she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed with Sarai’s proposal. So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife. (This happened ten years after Abram had settled in the land of Canaan.) (Genesis 16:1-3)

Have you ever gotten ahead of God's plan? You know what I mean - anxious for something to happen, so you just 'improvise' a bit to see if you 'can get things going'. Whenever I have done this, things go from bad to worse in no time at all! Why? God isn't in my 'improvisation' - he had another thing planned and I just stepped out of it. The good news is that whenever we make our own plans and take our own steps to see God's will fulfilled, he isn't going to let us muddle in that mess too long. He will show us where we need correction and then wait for us to actually stop our plans and step into his.

Abraham didn't wait - he allowed an 'improvised plan' to guide his actions - actions that would have a lasting effect on people for generations. The sad truth is that our 'immediate improvised plans' usually have a lasting effect of some sort. We may not see it today, but somewhere down the road, what we 'cooked up' to be the 'answer' to our needs or desires will come back to haunt us. Sin's outcome isn't always immediate - we may not see the result of our sin until some time has passed, but we will see it!

Some may think Abraham taking Hagar so he could finally have an heir was not all that 'wrong' - especially since God had promised him heir upon heir. The timing was off, the method was not right, and the outcome was not at all what God intended. Did Abraham have an heir? Yes, but the enmity between Hagar and Sarah, much less the enmity that would surface between his 'heir' and his future heirs would be greater than any might imagine. When we get outside of God's timing or his means of fulfilling his plans, we usually begin to see and feel the effects of our sin.

Sarah may have wanted to 'help' God - speeding along the process of having a much-anticipated heir. God's plans need no hurrying. They come in the right time. Trusting in God's timing is hard, but staying within his boundaries while we wait can be even more difficult. Abraham had been given Sarah in marriage - she was God's choice for Abraham. She was God's choice from which the heir would come. Going outside of the 'marriage boundary' was not in the plan. 

The good news is that even when we get outside of God's plans or timing, there is restoration. Will the results of our 'improvisation' still be there? Many times, the answer to that question is 'yes'. Will God help us through the difficulty that 'improvisation' creates? Yes, and he will help us with those consequences, but he may not always remove them! Just sayin!

Does Plan B negate Plan A

Do God's plans ever change? It is a question I have often asked when things seemed to be going one way and then all of a sudden, they are all headed the opposite direction. Is it possible the 'turn of events' that happened was really all of the original plan? Could it be that I just didn't see the 'whole plan' when I set out on the journey? Is it possible God's plans for us include much more than we see right now? Perhaps God has things more 'under control' than we might think because he frequently reminds us that even before we were born, the plans for our lives were already marked out.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5)

But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. (Galatians 1:15-16)

Home birth or hospital birth? High School grad or Post-Graduate studies? Single or Married? A home filled with children or no children? High-paying career or farmer? Upstanding citizen or criminal? Think of all the various ways our lives 'could have gone' but didn't. There are probably thousands of examples of 'what could have been' that we could enumerate, but the fact remains that God knows the plan - the beginning doesn't really define the outcome - he does! It always amazes me to know that God uses sinful men and women to carry out his plan - a plan established even before they were born.

If we are following Christ, living a righteous life, it makes sense that God can use us, but what about when we mess up a whole lot along the way and struggle with this sin nature we have? Can he still use us? Absolutely! In fact, he might even use some of the things we learn as a result of our sin to help others who struggle along the way, too. Did he plan for us to sin? Absolutely not, but he provided a way for us to be forgiven for that sin - grace. Could it be that God's 'Plan A' has always been in effect even when we chose to follow our own 'Plan B'?

Our calling is established - we might veer from it on occasion, but the calling remains. That means the empowerment to walk within that calling is still there even when we choose to follow our own plan for a while. Is there a way back? Always! God's grace is sufficient, his love is enduring, and his renewing power is available to those who seek a way back into his 'plan'. Plan B need never negate the power of Plan A. Just sayin!

Plans aborted - begin again

Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing. (Oscar Wilde)

Oh, come, let us sing to the Lord! Give a joyous shout in honor of the Rock of our salvation! Come before him with thankful hearts. Let us sing him psalms of praise. For the Lord is a great God, the great King of all gods. He controls the formation of the depths of the earth and the mightiest mountains; all are his. He made the sea and formed the land; they too are his. Come, kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is our God. We are his sheep, and he is our Shepherd. Oh, that you would hear him calling you today and come to him! (Psalm 95:1-7)

To truly 'experience' God, we have to come to him. We have to abandon our own pursuits in pursuit of him. There is much to be said about abandonment, but suffice it to say, we have to lay down if we are ever to pick up, give away if we are to get back, let go if we are to ever be held again. Life requires experience - it is riddled from birth to death with a plethora of experiences - some good, others pretty awesome. We find that how we view the experience determines how we will view the outcome.

God is in control of our lives - since he controls the formation of the depths of the earth and the mightiest of mountains, how can we argue his plan for our lives? We must experience his plan fully - meaning we might just have to lay down our own plans in order to fully be engulfed in his. Hard task, I know, but when undertaken fully, we are overtaken fully in his love, grace, power, and most importantly - his peace. 

If you have ever been pursuing a plan that didn't give you much peace, you label the things you are experiencing as 'hard', 'heartbreaking', 'tragic', or even 'life threatening'. Pursue the plan God has for your life and you might just find what has been breaking your heart wasn't all that worthy of your pursuit in the first place. Experience teaches us things - at least, that is what is supposed to happen. We are to take the good and the bad, learn from those things, and hopefully allow a change of plans as warranted.

To fully be 'within' God's plans for our lives, we have to first bring those plans to him. There will be times when he tells us our plans are bit flawed, requiring a certain adjustment. Embrace that warning and you find the course easy. Reject those adjustments and you will be in the midst of a 'hard lesson'. Experience isn't everything, but when we learn from it, we are doing well. When we reject God's instructions, we can count on a lesson or two to get us back into his presence to seek his plans once again! Just sayin!

Dreams or Plans?

You see all things; nothing about me was hidden from You as I took shape in secret, carefully crafted in the heart of the earth before I was born from its womb.  You see all things; You saw me growing, changing in my mother’s womb; every detail of my life was already written in Your book; You established the length of my life before I ever tasted the sweetness of it. Your thoughts and plans are treasures to me, O God! I cherish each and every one of them! How grand in scope! How many in number!  If I could count each one of them, they would be more than all the grains of sand on earth. Their number is inconceivable!  Even when I wake up, I am still near to You.  (Psalm 139:16-18 VOICE)

Toby Mac posted a timeline picture sometime ago which simply read: "If today I lose my hope, God, please remind me that your plans are better than my dreams." It is a truly beautiful thing to have our dreams and God's plans perfectly align, but if anyone else is like me, there are times when my dreams are pretty big and my performance is pretty weak!  It may not be the dream was wrong, but the execution of the plan was because it was done in my power or at the wrong time in my life!  We might just think we have to abandon our dreams, but what may be the case is that God wants us to submit the fulfillment of those dreams to him.  A friend posted:  "Thank God we don't look like what we've been through". Boy howdy!  Isn't that the truth!  Some of us are so worried about the dream's fulfillment, we barely "get through" unscathed. We just trudge through even when the "signs" all seem to be saying "not yet" or "slow down" or even "caution, proceed at your own risk".  

God's plans for our lives are not hard to understand.  He plans good for us - not evil.  He desires growth for us - not death.  He positions us for greatness - not defeat.  There are times though, when we get so wrapped up in seeing our dreams come to fruition that we totally miss out on what God might have intended for our lives in the process.  I don't think God opposes any dreams of ours as long as they are not evil, won't bring death, and are not going to leave us devastated beyond recovery.  I think he might caution us to avoid a few pitfalls and remind us some of these "big dreams" are "okay", but they aren't as good as what he might have planned for us.  In essence, God is going to watch over us, but he won't oppose our determination to do things our way if that is what we choose.  This is why it is ever so important to be sure our dreams make sense in accordance with the plans God has for each of us.

Now, God's plans are not that hard to get to understand.  They can be discovered by reading the Word many times.  It is there where we find "patterns" of what God allows and blesses. We can discover what he disallows and will not sanction as "okay" for our lives.  It is there for the discovery, but we have to be willing to discover!  Some of us get so "bent" on our dreams we cannot think there might be anything other than those dreams.  We go head-long into places we might very well find ourselves regretting down the road, but trust me on this, God can even use our failed dreams to bring good into our lives.  In those failures, we can grow or we can shrivel up and die.  That is our choice.  We chose the way we went, but God can redeem something from the worst course we have chosen - even though we are a little battered from the journey!

I like that God reminds us nothing about our lives is hidden from him - from the moment we were more than a twinkle in our Dad's eye to the moment we breathe our last breath, he had his hand on us.  He didn't miss a beat - a cell's division - or a hair's loss.  He sees it all - knows the end from the beginning - and in it all works to bring good out of both the courses he planned and we walked, and those we dreamed and chose instead!  God's thoughts and plans for our lives are innumerable.  We can only grasp hold of a few at at time, but he has the "play book" of our lives right there in front of him.  He knows when we will follow his call to execute a certain "play", or when we will choose to run our own play despite his advice not to! 

"God's purpose is more important than our plans". (Myles Munroe)  Wouldn't it be nice if both were perfectly aligned, though?  The more we submit our dreams to him, allowing him to craft them into the purpose and plans he designs for us, the closer the two will become. It doesn't take much sometimes to make a dream a reality, a near-miss a success.  In fact, it might just take us bringing those things to Jesus, laying them at his feet, and then just waiting for him to give us the guidance we so desperately need.  Just sayin!