We’re told to make plans for our lives. Since grade school we’ve been asked what we want to do in the future, what impact we want to make on the world, and what our plan is to do so. We lie awake in our beds, fantasizing what our “perfect” life will be in the near future. We hustle and work ourselves to the point of exhaustion to execute those tedious plans we’ve created. We gain supporters of our dreams along the way and have those people to fall back on when we may get discouraged. But then sometimes we hit a bump in the road…
Sometimes it’s hard to understand why God allows the bumps in the road to happen. It’s hard for us to understand why we can’t just reach our goals and aspirations without their being hardships on the way. An even more difficult thing to understand is when our life takes us on a difficult course, completely away from the plans we had. Once this happens it seems as though the plans that we had will never be fathomable.
It’s easy to question God’s authority in our life when what we thought was supposed to happen, doesn’t. Ask your coworker, ask your neighbor, ask your pastor. There is something that occurs or will occur in everyone's life that makes us question God’s plan for our life. We may assume that just because we have this idea or dream that it’s the same plan God has for our life.
Discouragement so easily sets in when we forget that even better than our plans, are the plans of the Lord. We’ve spent so much time detailing our own lives that we forget the the creator of the universe, who tells the wind which way to blow, holds our future in his hand. If you stop and think about it, the same creator of the Earth also created the plans for your life and that is more than enough encouragement me to get out of bed each day.
But the reality is, we don’t stop and think about that enough. We spend time thinking about our own plans. We spend time thinking about why things aren’t going the way WE expected them to go.
If we our truthful with ourselves, the lives we imagine and strategize usually don’t involve bringing success to someone else. Selfishness is a human tendency, and sometimes we just can’t help ourselves. But God has these magnificent plans for our lives for us to prosper and be well off. But in those plans he also has hardships for the purpose of bringing glory to his name. It’s easy to think that we’re going through a hard situation as a punishment or because we haven’t lived a perfect life. But if you allow God to cultivate who you are through those difficult times, your future won’t just be one of prosperity for yourself, but others as well.
Allowing yourself to be branded by the fire of God produces a testimony so strong, it compels all of those who hear it to make a change in their life. Whether it be for them to give their life to the Lord, or to rededicate their life to making God their number one.
God knows the desires of your heart, and he won’t ignore them. But just remember, his will for your life reigns supreme. What may seem like a difficult time in your life, just may be the launching pad to that prosperous life God has for you. I’m here to remind you not to be discouraged if your life may not be going in the direction you think it should be. Remember that God is in control and has great intentions for your life!