Trusting God’s Plan For Our Lives

This month, we celebrate the many students that will be graduating and setting out on a new chapter in their life. In times like these, we think about what’s next and wonder about God’s plan for our life.

This goes back even further to our view of who God is. Recently, I was listening to “More Than You Think I Am” by Danny Gokey and thinking about how we often have a wrong view of God. We think that God is only in a church or on a mountain top or high up in the clouds rather than with us all of the time wherever we go. We think that because He is big and has so many people to worry about, He doesn’t care about us at all. Or we even think that if He’s really there, He created the world and offered salvation but left us to fend for ourselves until we die. Some people think because God can see everything we do, that He is just a giant policeman in the sky waiting to catch us doing something bad. We think that we know about God from our culture’s stereotypes, but God really is so much different than all of that. He knows everything about us and loves us so deeply. He also has a plan for each of our lives. Listen to the song that’s been inspiring and uplifting me this week:

 

More Than You Think I Am by Danny Gokey

 

When we think about God’s plan, it is important to know that God knows who we are individually:

“You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (Psalm 139:16)

 

Think about that. Before you were born, before anyone else knew anything about you, God had a plan for your life. He knew all about you and He knew everything that was going to happen. God is outside of time and so He is able to look at time like we see this timeline. He can see the end and the beginning and everything in between.

 

One of the most popular verses you’ll find in the Bible about God’s plan for your life is Jeremiah 29:11. You may have heard it before:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

It’s comforting knowing that God knows who you are and has a plan for your life. In addition, He’s not up in the sky plotting horrible things to punish you for the bad that you’ve done. He created us, knows everything about us and is planning good things for our future. Through Jesus, we have hope. While God plans good things for us here, we also can remember that our ultimate hope is in Heaven where we will be with Jesus for eternity if we have a relationship with Him.

 

I recently read about Corrie Ten Boom using this visual during her presentations and thought it was perfect to show what we are talking about today.

The caption with this picture stated:

During Corrie’s presentations to audiences, she would often hold the back side of a piece of embroidery (pictured), with hundreds of tangled threads hanging from it. Many wondered if she was holding up the wrong side by mistake. As she held up the messy side of the embroidery she would ask…“Does God always grant us what we ask for in prayer? Not always. Sometimes He says, ‘No.’ That is because… God knows what we do not know. God knows all. Look at this piece of embroidery. The wrong side is chaos. But look at the beautiful picture on the other side – the right side.”Triumphantly she flipped the cloth over and revealed an elaborately embroidered crown – symbolizing our crown of eternal life. The crown was intricately stitched, and had threads of many colors, including gold, silver and pearls.“We see now the wrong side, God sees His side all the time. One day we shall see the embroidery from His side, and thank Him for every answered and unanswered prayer.”

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What a beautiful way to think about God’s plan for our life! To know that even when we look at our lives and everything looks like a mess, He is still working to make something amazing and breathtaking out of it! I am reminded of Isaiah 55:8-9:

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

 

God has the whole picture and He can see it from the right side, but we have to continue trusting even when we don’t know what He could possibly doing. While I don’t always like that I have to trust God, the Romans 8:28 gives me a promise that I can hold onto:

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”

 

He isn’t just a God concerned about the general, overall, greater good of everyone in the universe, but He cares about you!

“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” (Psalm 56:8)

 

I think one of my favorite verses is Proverbs 3:5-6.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.”

I love the reminder that I can trust God and that He wants me to fully depend on Him even when I don’t understand. It makes it easier to do this knowing that He knows everything that happens. Every hurt. Every tear. That He has a plan and He’s working it out. Sometimes when things happen in our life, doubts creep in and we wonder what God is doing. We assume that if He’s really there and He really cares, He’ll make all of the bad things go away because that makes the most sense from our perspective.

 

Next time you wonder about God’s will for your life and it causes you to question the character of God, remember that He loves you and that He is working it all out for good. Continue to trust Him even when this is the only part of the picture that you see: