We live in a society that is obsessed with self. Every day we have access to an abundance of opportunities for self-improvement, self-fulfillment, self-gratification, self-love. The problem is that all this focus on self removes our focus from where it should be. We readily believe society that we need "me-time," but we neglect the more important God-time. Our self-centeredness means we are not God-centered, and because of this, the more we strive to better ourselves, the worse we may actually become. If we dig deep enough in our self-examination, we will find that it's the focus on self that causes most of our problems--our entitlement, our arrogance, our anger, our jealousy, our fighting, our gossip and unedifying words. If we focused on God a little more and ourselves a little less, we would find that our lives reflect Him more than our sinful natures. If we focused on God more than ourselves, we would find that we are more improved, fulfilled, satisfied, and loved than we ever were when our focus was on us. This isn't to say that there is no benefit to self-examination if we use the process to turn our focus back to God. But there is more harm than benefit when our self-examination becomes self-obesession. As Christians, we need to break free of society's self-focus and start focusing on God instead. This is the only way we will be able to walk in victory and to lead others to victory as well.
Several months ago, my mom forwarded me the following from a daily email that she gets from mountainwings.com:
How much of your breath (spirit) is knocked out because you are running someone else's race?
Are you trying to outrun someone's car, house, clothes, looks, job title, etc.?
How much pain are you in trying to keep up with someone who may be running for an entirely different reason, heading to an entirely different place, with entirely different muscles?
Slow down or maybe speed up, but run your race to the best of your ability.
Whether you realize it or not, you are the real pace setter.
Don't run fast when you should be running slowly. Don't run at all when you should be walking, and don't walk when you should be running.
This was intriguing to me because we live in a world where we are constantly asked by the media to keep up with the proverbial Joneses. I've certainly fallen victim to this mentality myself, but recently I'm seeing evidence that God has been changing my mindset in this area. This month, I ran across an old friend from high school. He now lives in California and writes screenplays, which is exactly what he wanted to do when we were growing up. I think somewhere I still have a peace sign key chain that he made in 7th grade art back when we were friends and neither of us was making a name for ourselves outside of Crofton Middle School. That little peace sign might be worth something soon. Within the same week of running across him, I received in the mail an alumni newsletter from the University of Maryland with a feature about an alum who is now the Pixar Technical Diector and Character Shading Lead and who worked on Cars and Ratatouille. We used to hang out together in college. We took a Shakespeare class together and went to the Maryland Renaissance festival together and reguarly communicated on IM. He is now also living his dream.
What struck me was not so much what these two folks are doing now, but how different my reaction was to their success than what it would have been 5 years ago (or even less). Normally, I would expect to feel a little jealous of the "glamour" of what they're doing compared to my daily life. But I didn't feel jealous at all. Instead, I realized that just as they are living their dreams, I am living mine. It may not be perfect or exactly how I imagined it growing up, which I'm sure is the same as they would say about their lives. Nevertheless, all my choices have led up to exactly where I am right now, and where I am right is right where I want to be. My life may not be exciting enough to make the newsletters, but it's what I wanted--a happy marriage, a dog, and a house in suburbia. Once I stopped focusing on other people's lives and comparing my dreams to theirs, I realized God had brought to fruition in mine the very things that have truly been the desires of my heart (Psalm 37:4).
Of course, I say all this with hesistancy because being too happy with the way my life is going makes me a little nervous. The last time I was happy with my life tragedy struck, and I don't want to invite any more tragedy by enjoying where my life is right now. On the other hand, I want to freely praise God for bringing me through so much darkness to get me where I am today, and I want to stand in awe of Him for planning the course of my race so carefully that it would always be precisely what I need it to be. And I guess that is exactly why I should trust him with the future, tragedy and all. God has always directed my path exactly as I've needed for my own growth, even when the path has gone through places I never want to revisit.
I admit that American Idol has been a guilty pleasure for me this year. I don't vote, but I do get excited to see the results shows. I know it's silly, but I deal with real issues all day at work, and I like to have a brief escape to look forward to a couple times a week. Last night, I was quite disappointed to see Melinda Doolittle get booted from the show. In addition to having the best singing voice this season, Melinda is also an outspoken Christian woman, and for this reason even more than her vocal talent, I was pulling for her to succeed. Last night when she got voted off, two things occured to me. First, she is probably better off not winning because now she can make whatever type of album she chooses to make instead of being forced into some cookie cutter pop album mode. I'd love to see her make a gospel album because I think it would be brilliant. Second, the grace with which she handled what had to be disappointing news to her blew me away. She smiled, didn't shed a single tear, and graciously applauded the two whom the public selected. Her absolute peace with her circumstances set a beautiful example of how Christians should live before the world. After months and months of hard work, her efforts came to an end and this had to be a let down for her. Yet she stood in front of the camera and her actions said not my will, but God's will be done. Knowing how self-absorbed I can be, I was actually moved to tears by Melinda's faith. Like her, I know that God's plan is better than my own, but when I've poured so much of myself into something with the hopes of a specific outcome, I often have a hard time smiling graciously. As I watched her and felt my own emotion welling up, God convicted me again that grace like Melinda displayed is God's call on the lives of all mature Christians. He wants to bring me to a place of such rest in Him where I can face the entire roller coaster of life with a heart of total surrender and peace--maybe not always with a smile, but always with the grace that is a natural offshoot of yielding to higher plan than my own, of dying to myself and living in Him.
I have been thinking a lot about marriage lately. Perhaps this because one of my best friends recently got engaged, perhaps because another friend has a wedding coming up in two months, or perhaps because I'm still pretty new at marriage myself. I've been thinking a lot about God's plans for us in the romance and love and how quickly so many of us in our single lives have dismissed God's plans in favor of our own agenda. For myself, I know that pre-John, I was quick to buy into the Hollywood idea of marriage as an end rather than a beginning. In fact, in much of my dating life before John, I would look at a guy and wonder immediately if he was "the one" and if we would live happily ever after. Immediately. Looking back now, I realize how naive I was, how duped I was by society's ideas of romance. Our culture encourages us to become too close too quickly, and I certainly adhered to this pattern in many ways. When I reflect on the times my heart has been broken, I realize I was hurt because I was chasing after and clinging to less than God's best for me. I wanted what I wanted when I wanted it and I didn't want to listen to God telling me to wait. I have seen so many of my sisters in Christ fall victim to this same mentality. But when we come to the other side, as I have also been blessed to see many of my sisters do, we discover that all along God really has known what He was doing. He didn't forget about us or ignore our prayers, He was just waiting for us to get to the place where we could be truly ready for His answer.
By the time I met John, I had been so burned by my own foolish decisions that I was ready to surrender to God. For the first time in my life, I let myself be courted without trying to rush or force things into place. I let a man pursue my heart and I found God's love for me in my surrender. Sometimes I wish I had trusted Him more completely earlier on with this area of my life. I would certainly have saved myself a lot of tears if I had. Other times I think that God knows how bull-headed I am and that all the while that I was getting hurt, He was waiting patiently for me to get tired of trying to do things my own way. If I have children, the virture I would pray for them to acquire earlier than I did would be patience, to write in their hearts Psalm 27:14, "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." I know how difficult it is to be patient in matters of the heart, but I have also learned what a blessing it is to trust Him for His best in this area. God brought me to a place where marriage became an honest and true expression of my love for another person and for God, a wonderful landmark in my journey rather than a culmination to my journey. He brought me to a place where marriage became a means to better glorify Him rather than to satisfy my worldly wants. We live in a world that unreasonably glorifies male-female relationships and usually cuts God out of the picture entirely. My heart breaks when I watch some of my students falling into the same mental traps that I fell into when I was younger because I know they are setting themselves up for pain. God has a simpler way, which we discover by patiently and faithfully waiting on Him. Society complicates matters of the heart, but John and I stand together as a living testimony that God is faithful even when it takes us awhile to trust Him instead of the world.
One final note for today, people often want to put a timeline on human relationships, forgetting that God exists and often works outside of our time. When we are involved in a romantic relationship, we sometimes want to speed up the process. When we are watching those we care about in a relationship, we sometimes want to slow the process down. In both cases our intentions are may be good, but we have to remember that God's timing may not look like ours. Trust in Him and know that as humans we are often wrong when we draw conclusions beacuse we don't see the whole picture that God sees. Part of faith is allowing God to move in spite our limited understanding. We need to be patient in trusting Him just as He is patient with our ignorance as we watch His plan unfold.
You would think that at some point along my walk as a Christian, I would learn to look past my circumstances and remember that no matter what I see in front of and beside me, God is still God. In the book I am studying with the women's group at my church, Max Lucado's He Still Moves Stones, Max writes in chapter 18 about how imagines what Joseph might have been feeling the night that Jesus was born. He imagines Joseph praying and wondering at how different the birth of the Messiah was from what Joseph had envisioned--a barn on a haystack instead of a nice room on a comfortable bed, alone instead of surrounded by friends and family. A manger was no way for a king to enter the world, and Max ponders that this scene in his life was unfolding much more differently than what Joseph would have envisioned.
This chapter struck a chord with me because of the way so much of my life has unfolded lately, or, actually, if I'm going to be completely honest, how my life has unfolded pretty much since I left the womb. God often moves in my life in ways that I never would have anticipated just as He did in Joseph's life on the night that Jesus was born. And like Joseph, I often find myself looking around dumbfounded with only the question of "huh?" on my lips. Satan likes to take that "huh?" response to the circumstances around us and use it to drive us away from God. Satan wants us to believe in the reality of our own thoughts rather than the sovereignty of God. In response to our "huh?" Satan says, "Let's look at this logically. The facts of the situation show that God either doesn't care about you at all or he is completely insane. Wouldn't you be better off on your own?" Satan wants us to run away from the God we should be serving.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." --Isaiah 55:8-9
The huge call of faith in our daily lives is to trust that God knows better than us. His thoughts and His ways may not make sense to us, but that is because His thoughts and His ways are far larger than what our minds can comprehend and far better than that for which our sinful hearts could hope. The challenge of being a Christian is perservering on our walks even when the road we're on seems completely illogical. If we had it our way, the path would be straight and free of thorns that might hurt us on the way. Faith calls us to trust in the goodness of God's ways regardless of our present circumstances. God does not put twists or thorns in our path without purpose and we can trust that every one of those twists and every sharp thron is placed there so that we can grow and glorify Him. And much to our chagrin, the biggest glory for God and the most profound growth for us rarely comes from the easiest path.
In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. --Proverbs 16:9
Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. --Proverbs 19:21
Someone once told me that they admire the fact that when I see something I want, I go after it. This is a blessing and a curse. See, because I have a tendency to think my plans are brilliant, I have to check myself when I pray to make sure that I am seeking God's plans rather than asking God to bless my plans. It's been a hard lesson for my self-seeking mind to learn, but my life is not about me, it's about God. And thank goodness for that! If my life was all about me and my plans, I would have much smaller, less exciting existence. My vision is limited and seeking only to please myself with my limited understanding would land me in situation after situation that I don't want to be in. Of course, because of my severe lack of foresight, I wouldn't know I was walking into disaster until I found disaster and began to retrospectively reflect upon my choices. We are very blessed we have a God who has allowed us free will to pursue our own plans and fail until we finally learn that our own plans aren't worth any fraction of the time and energy that we put into making them. I praise God for all the times that I have had to face the consequences for my actions so that I could learn how poor my own planning is and how desperately I need to consult God for His plan.
Ultimately, God has a purpose and plan for each of us that is far greater than what we ourselves could imagine. When I pray, I pray for His plans to come into fruition so that He will be glorified. I wear my emotions very close to the surface, so I tend to get excited (or very depressed) about things before consulting God for His will. It is still sometimes challenging for me to remember when I get hit an emotional extreme over something that God knows more than me and that I may be excited over something that isn't really in my best interest or depressed about the very thing that is best for me. The premature excitement about someone was a common theme in my dating life before I met my husband! This same type of them is also woven into to most major decisions I have faced including professional decisions and the recent move my husband and I made. I want God to direct my steps and define my purpose, and I have to squelch my emotions so that I don't wander off course and miss the higher calling on my life by settling for something lessor when the lessor is all I can see.
You have made known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
--Psalm 16:11
In the study I am doing on Max Lucado's book, He Still Moves Stones, Max writes about how we walk through this life blind. We do not know where we are going or what the future holds. God is guiding us, but we are easily distracted by all the other noise around us. Max is right. Sometimes it is hard to focus on God's voice when our society, our colleagues, and even our friends and family tell us to go different directions. We have to filter out so much noise to hear God's still small voice whispering to us.
Through all of the chaos and mixed messages of the world, God has given us the path of life. What great news for all of us blind people! God is with us to show us the right way to go. From my experience, the best way to discern God's will within the mess of our daily lives is to faithfully stay in God's word. His word is where He has laid out the path of life. Logic tells us that we can't recognize the voice of someone we don't know. Reading and meditating on His word and maintaining an active prayer life is how we get to know God and how we learn to pick His voice out of the noise around us.
When we invite God into all areas of our lives, we will learn to stay on the path of life. On the path of life we will find a deeper joy and peace than we could ever have imagined--far deeper than the superficial and transient happiness that the world offers. The path of life is not an easy road, but when walk it our joy and peace follow us into our pain. Our joy and peace are part of our eternal experience, holy side effects of staying in God's presence. And that is what God wants for us. He wants us to walk with Him on the path of life and feel the joy of being in His presence today. Our joy with Him now gives us a glimpse of heaven while we're still on earth and some days that is all the hope we need to persevere.
Yesterday was a day of rejoicing for me. After a months of trial, John and I finally went to settlement and sold our townhouse. On this site, I haven't written much detail about the battle we have had with this house, but I have been emailing out the prayer requests to close friends and family, and we are grateful for all the prayers that ultimately led to our deliverance from the series of crises connected to the sale of this house. Based on the sequence of events that unfolded with the townhouse, it was clear that Satan was working his hardest to get some type of victory from the situation. Fortunately, we serve a God who is much greater than our enemy (1 John 4:4). Through the peace that surrounded us from everyone's prayers, John and I perservered through the trial and came out stronger than before both as husband and wife and as individuals walking with God. We both grew tremendously during this time, especially in regards to patience and faith. Even though we are relieved for it to be over, I can honestly say that I am already grateful for the experience because it brought me back to my knees in a way that I hadn't truly been for awhile. What Satan meant for harm, God used for good (Genesis 50:20).
A few hours after settlement ended yesterday, I took my dog for a walk. A little after 7pm, we set off on our usual path through the woods behind our house. During the walk, I was praising God for deliverance from the trials we recently faced and for the all the people who prayed for us. As we turned a corner on the path, about 50 feet in front of us we watched as a group of deer ran across the path and up the hill to the left of the path where we were walking. They stood still at the top of the hill and stared at us through the trees. I counted seven deer total, which is quite a few for a small wooded area in the middle of a very developed community. In my entire life leading up to this point, I had only seen as many as two deer together at once, so this sight was a brand new one for me. Since I was already in a prayerful mindset, I quickly recalled some scripture related to deer:
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. --Psalm 42:1
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights. --Psalm 18:33
I believe that God sent those deer across my path to remind me of His presence and power in my life. He sent seven of them because He wanted to make sure He got my attention!
Out of curiousity today, I decided to do some online research to see if there is any symbolism to deer. I found out on one site that in Native American culture, deer are symbollic of purity of purpose and of walking in the light. Although this was obviously not derived directly from the Bible, the idea of purity of purpose and walking in the light reminded me again of Psalm 42:1 and 18:33 because of the comparison in those verses to our own walks with God and the life of a deer in the forest. Even more exciting, I found out in an online book review that in ancient times Christians used the deer as a symbol for Christ partly because the stag was considered an enemy of the serpent and therefore a symbol of Christ's triumph over Satan. Wow. Christ just triumphed over Satan in a huge way in my life, then God sends deer across my path, and then I learn that in ancient times Christians used the deer to symbolize Christ's triumph.
Even further, Biblically speaking, seven is considered a holy number as a number of completeness and perfection. So perhaps the seven deer were sent to remind me that God's trimumph over Satan has already been completed and perfected with Christ's work on the cross. I truly have no reason to fear (Romans 8:31). This is loaded with meaning for me becuase of the personal inner struggle I have been battling with fear and faith for the past few years, long before this townhouse situation arose. God gives me goosebumps in the way He orchestrates everything so perfectly and so beautifully! I am also awed by His personal and intimate interest in me and of all His children. He reaches out to us where we are, but so often we are too caught up in ourselves to notice. I praise Him and thank Him for His relentless pursuit of my wandering heart.
There is not enough Visine in the world to make my insomnia-red eyes white again. If you're wondering why I haven't posted lately, my endless exhaustion pretty much sums it up. I am so tired because I cannot sleep. Usually I fall asleep, but medicated or unmedicated, I always wake up a few hours early and cannot fall back asleep. No, my body is not telling me that I've slept enough. I know this because if I was sleeping enough I wouldn't feel so spent all the time. I'm waking up because my psyche is telling me that something just isn't right. And I know what it is.
I am a person who likes to have control, but the God I serve prefers for my life to be reserved for His purposes rather than mine. No doubt His way is better, I've learned this time and time again, but what makes me lose sleep at night is worry about everything I have no control of. Everything I think I want but know I may not get and everything I imagine could happen to disrupt my comfortable status quo. I have plans, and the Bible has something to say about this:
Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. --Proverbs 19:21
The bad news is that after a lifetime as a Christian, I still need to learn to trust and surrender. If I trusted more, I could rest easy knowing that the God of the universe has my back and I have no reason to worry. I could also trust that I do in fact have no control and therefore worrying is futile since what is going to happen is going to happen regardless of whether or not I'm well-rested or up all night.
The good news is that my plans don't even begin to measure up to God's plans for me, no matter how wonderful a future I think I have mapped out in my head. I come back to Jeremiah 29:11 over and over again on this website (that is, when I'm actually posting on this website on a regular basis!) because it is a lesson that I constantly need to remind myself of--God's plans for me are good. He has a hopeful and prosperous future planned for me, not a shoddy one. Worrying about my plans is a waste of time when I'd literally be better off focusing on God's plans because His plans are better.
This morning, I listened to The Verve's Bitter Sweet Symphony on the radio, and I found myself wondering how much the singer believes the words he's crooning, "'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony this life/Trying to make ends meet, you're a slave to the money then you die." Is this hopeless and helpless outlook all that he sees ahead? I can't imagine waking up in the morning and looking at the steep climb in front of me for the day with nothing more to hold onto than the grim picture he paints in these verses.
On the other hand, I think about the book I just finished last night and how everything wrapped up so neatly at the end. I left that book almost entirely unmoved because of the ridiculousness of such neat little endings to all the subplots that in reality would not have cute bows tied around them. Books and movies that end with everything working out so sweetly irritate me, because I know in my life there is no happy ending in sight until the end of my physical walk. If a slice of my life was woven into a story, it would end as messy as it began with broken pieces that can be swept away but not restored. Hurts that never fully heal and wounds that will be forgiven but not forgotten.
Because I have hope and small moments of joy that I cling to like a rock climber to a foothold, my life is not a bittersweet symphony. But neither is my life a series of happy endings like a cheap novel or a feel-good romantic comedy. My life is a series of loss and gain and then some more loss. It's a series of changes that often hurt, but that I hope are taking me further towards my eternal destination. If the climb depended only on me, I would lose hope. And, unlike The Verve, I probably wouldn't sing about the bittersweet symphony, because I'd probably be too depressed to force my vocal chords to move together in harmony.
Instead of mourning in the midst of the sorrow of life, I cling to the words of the Psalmist, "Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge" (Psalm 62:5-7). No matter how impossible the climb ahead looks, I can rest in the knowledge that God is shouting "Belay on!" to remind me that He is my anchor and He won't let me plummet to the hard ground below. The journey is not easy, but with security of knowing that God is protecting me during the climb, I can push on ahead with hope and peace. His plan is not for a challenge-free climb; it is for refinement through challenge so that we are fully ready for what lies on the other side.
Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. --Titus 2:4-5
I've been having a hard time keeping up with my schedule. I did not post much last week because my days were so full and when I did have some down time, I pretty much crashed on my bed and slept to recover from running around so much. The sad part is that I have such a hard time keeping up with my commitments, that I don't have the energy to be "busy at home". I've mentioned before that I'm not exactly the best housekeeper, and I'm even less likely to keep up with cleaning when I'm tired and busy outside of the home. When I read how the Bible says I should be as a wife and a mother, I start to wonder how I will ever make room for kids in my life if my schedule stays the way it is. John and I cannot afford to live off of one income, and I keep hearing my co-workers talk about how expensive kids are. I know I want kids, but I don't know how I'm going to have the time and engery to actively love them the way they need to be loved while also contributing to the financial well-being of my home. I want to be the kind of wife and mother that God wants me to be so that I can model His love for my family, but I'm so busy that I don't presently see how that will work. I guess God's timing and plan is better than mine. I wanted children before now, but God knows that I'm not ready. When He's ready for me to be a mother, I will have to seek His will for how to become less busy outside the home so I can be busier in the home.
At that time the Lord said to me, "Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to me on the mountain. Also make a wooden chest. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Then you are to put them in the chest." So I made the ark out of acacia wood and chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. The Lord wrote on these tablets what he had written before, the Ten Commandments he had proclaimed to you on the mountain, out of the fire, on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. --Deuteronomy 10:1-4
When we make ourselves open to His leading, God uses us to do great things for His kingdom. Moses had a friendship with God (Exodus 33:11). He knew God's word well and he communicated with God regularly via prayer. In response to Moses' faithfulness to God, God communicated regularly with Moses as well. He knew from Moses' actions that Moses had a heart for God and for God's kingdom. Because Moses loved God, knew God from His word, and maintained a strong relationship with God through regular communication (prayer), God used Moses in amazing ways. God knew He could trust Moses with a high calling because Moses trusted God so much. God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and into their promised land. Moses could have questioned God when God told him to hold up his staff and the Red Sea would part. He could have chosen to act in fear instead of faith. He could have turned back to the Egyptians rather than try to cross the sea. Fortunately for his people, he choose faith. Later in the journey, God called Moses onto a mountaintop where Moses met with God and God handed him the ten commandments. Moses could have questioned God when God called him into a cloud on the top of a mountain. He could have acted in fear and chosen to stay with his people rather than climbing an unknown moutain to meet with God. But Moses chose to trust the God he knew so well. Imagine what he would have missed if he had not acted in trust! I certainly believe God's kingdom would still be furthered, but He would have picked someone else to do these huge kingdom tasks. If Moses had not been so open to God's leading, Moses would have missed opportunties to see God act powerfully. God wants to use each of us to do things for His kingdom that we cannot even imagine. God wants to show each of us His power. Like Moses, we can be part of something much grander than our own schemes if we are open to God's leading and willing to step out on faith. First, we must get to know God through His word and regular communication via prayer just like Moses did so that we can better recognize God's voice. When we're open, God will do His part of calling us and our part will be to follow and watch Him act through us and around us.
I haven't posted much lately because I've been on spring break and have not had any desire to sit in front of a computer since that is all I do at work. Posting will resume this week as I return to work. In the meantime, Happy Easter!
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.
--Mark 16:1-6
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." --Jeremiah 29:11
God has a plan for you. He has a plan for each of us, even if we don't always see the method to His madness while we walk the earth. But even though He has a plan, we're sometimes hesitant to seek it and walk in it. Those of us who have been walking with the Lord for any length of time know all too well that when God says He is going to prune away the parts of our characters and our lives that do not please Him (John 15:2), He means it. We also know that the process of having parts of you and your life sliced off, is not typically a pleasant experience. Since none of us by nature like to suffer and since we sometimes associate God's plan with suffering, we often seek our own way as the easy way out. But, ultimately, God's plan for us in not a plan of suffering. Yes, there may be some suffering involved along the way, but we can take comfort in the fact that our Father never allows suffering in our lives without a purpose. He uses the suffering to change and rebuild us, not to leave us permanently broken down. Suffering is not the goal of God's plan. Actually, His plans have quite the opposite end in mind according to God's words through Jeremiah. God has promised that the goal of His plan for each of us is goodness, peace, and hope. Even if we can't see it anywhere on our horizon, God has a good plan for our future. If we choose to our own way instead of God's, we may very well miss out on the full extent of goodness that He has planned for us. If we only saw the big picture, our momentary suffering may very well seem worth it! Instead of trying to avoid His discipline in our lives, we should rejoice that He loves us enough to prune us. Even more, instead of dread when we think of God's plan for us, we should wake up each morning filled with gratitude that we are allowed to be a part of a plan that includes a hopeful future.