I hope you’re having a great day, friends! I always love devotion days, because I get to hear from so many of you. Your words always encourage and challenge me. If you haven’t read today’s Encouragement for Today, pop right over and visit our P31 blog too.
Jeremiah 29:11 says, “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.” It’s a verse that reminds us that God has a Plan A for each of us. Although He doesn’t promise a perfect life with no pain or interruptions, we can rest in the knowledge that in His goodness He doesn’t waste anything. He uses everything, and as our children’s pastor always used to say, “God’s way is always best.”
Carolyn Custis James has written one of the few books that I reread periodically, When Life and Beliefs Collide. In it, she tells a story of how her family was uprooted in a move to England for her husband’s career. She found that although the move was for her husband she was included in “Plan A”.
She says this, “No other plan takes precedence over the one he has planned for you. Your story isn’t a spin-off of what God is doing in someone else’s life. He runs the world as if you were his only concern. It works that way for all of us.”
Recently, my Sunday school class discussed a beautiful illustration of this from the book of Ruth. After studying the 4 chapters of the book in depth for weeks, one of our final impressions was how God worked all things to the good of every person in the story—Ruth, Naomi and Boaz.
He will surely do the same for you! If you’d like to read about my personal experience with the unfolding of God’s plan, please visit last week’s posts from Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
I’d love to hear your story of God’s divine unfolding in your life!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
God's Plans
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15 comments:
If you had asked me as a teenager what God's plan for me was, I probably would have said student, jet-setter, doing various works for him. I am not sure I understood though how much you have to see his will for you and how silly I was to place my plan as God's. Here I am now, at 25 yrs. old, married 6 yrs., a military wife, stay-at-home Mom, and you know what I am still in college. Nothing is how I thought it would be and yet it is fantastic! I know the Lord and I know he is directing my steps. This is my plan A and while I am in prayer and sense great things coming in my future, there is no place I'd rather be now.
I have been a stay-at-home mom for 9 and a half years. I have been offered a job (pending approval from the powers that be) at my children's school which seems to be perfect for me. I am so excited about the opportunity and the thought of being able to add to our family's income and having the same schedule as the kids sounds ideal. Everything is headed in the right direction, but not as quickly as I would like. Thank you for your devotional today. It's just what I needed to hear. I'm going tostay focused on Plan A, and know that none of this is a suprise to God.
I finally learning to let go and let God take control of my life. Not a easy thing for me to do. Enjoy reading your story.
Many Blessings,
Virginia
I am in the waiting, but still living my life with gusto in all of the plan B's. Looking back over my path, I can see how God is using this time for me to grow, and how He is working in me. It is sometimes hard to be patient when I feel a higher calling nudging me, but I know it will happen in God's time, if it is meant to happen at all. He is teaching me patience, and trust in Him. And so much more!
This one really hits home for me! We also are in the waiting. God says to trust him and watch him move. It is so hard to sit and wait without knowing the plan. I so want to control, but I know God's way is best!
Amy,
Thank you so much for this devotion. God speaking to me through you. And wouldn't you know what I was reading last night? 1 Samuel! I've been waiting to hear from God on a path I wanted to get off, but clearly I am to stay on it. I heard it last night and it was confirmed again today through your devotion. Plan A it is. Thank you again for your words of wisdom.
I too am waiting for God to lead me to a different career when it is His time. I've worked for the same company for 26 years and my prayer is that one day I will be doing ministry full time. One day when the time is right, it will happen and I won't be looking over my shoulder!
You know that song from the movie Fireproof - While I'm waiting - well, this is what I'm trying to do, because waiting is what it is for me. I'm wondering and waiting and working on following His lead. Every once in a while I get a glimpse of what may be. Things going on in my life that make me wonder - 1. Returning to college with no clear goal to come from that except a degree - God says one class at a time, 2. Words popping in my head and suddenly I have thirty pages of a story written down and I've never had the desire or notion to write a story before. I am not an author or am I? 3. Encouraging a young friend with a baby in her marriage and I have not been blessed with children. Most days are filled with good anticipation like I just know He is working on something (only I don't know what) and some days are filled with heaviness that I can't put a finger on, so I can only pray. I know something is going on around me and in me and I KNOW it's God. So I am waiting, hopeful, and content that HE will reveal it all in due time.
I am amazed at how God will at the appropriate time allow us to read something that truly speaks volumes to our hearts. Although my situation has nothing to do with career etc it is definitely a waiting on God's timing for sure. My family went through a divorce over a year ago. The process started almost three years ago however. During that painful time though, God spoke ever so gently to my heart... that He would restore my family. I have gone through the doing it my way and giving up on God's Plan 'A' and really going to Plan 'Z' to totally relying on Him to do just as He said he would. I, of course, want it RIGHT now. He has a much better timeline. Even as I type this I can look back over events during the last three years and see Him molding me and making me into what HE wants me to be as a wife, mother and most of all child of the King! Reading your devotion just cemented that in my heart. God's timing is always better than my timing and He is never too early, too late but always right on time... He will recieve the glory for the Plan 'A' He is orchestrating in my life.
Thank you for your devotional today!
God has truly been good to me. for months I was out of work and had no wher to live. now God has blessed me to be in the work study program at my college and i am so grateful to be in Gods plan. I was just quoting jer.29:11 to someone i was speaking withgefore i read this passage. God is so awesome. I agree with ark.this is my plan A. and i will wait patiently on the lord for plan B.
Amy, it was an absolute blessing reading your devotional today. I have been somewhat hounding God on what His calling is on my life. Jeremiah 29:11 has been continually on my mind. Your devotion helped remind me that no time with God is wasted.
Hi, Amy! Loved the devo and your post here.
I know God's plan for me is to daily abide in Him. I know His plans for me are good. I have learned not to hold tightly to what He has asked me to do, but rather to hold tightly only to Him.
Amy, your blog looks great and I LOVE the anchor verse!!!!!!!
Hugs,
Sharon
Amy, I cling to that verse at this time in my life, but somehow I am finding less and less comfort in it. My husband has been out of work for almost 2 years and we were just served foreclosure papers on our home. We have been married for 24 years and have 3 wonderful children. I am scared to death and can't see any good in what is going on. How do I hold on to my faith at a time like this? Please pray that God sends a job for my husband soon. Otherwise, I fear we will be homeless.
This could not have come on a better day. I was in a career that I found no any joy in anymore I was going through the motions but I was not happy doing what I was doing, I wanted out. When out of no where God put dream in my heart that honestly was unfathomable to me, it is something I never even considered doing. I asked the question over and over again, "God are You sure You want ME for this?" I prayed for roadblocks that never came. For the last six months I had been going to my job and living out the dream that God had placed on my heart on the weekends, but I was starved for time, the weekends just weren't enough. Also during this time He put me through some serious testing, I must have passed because the day you posted this is the day I lost my job, as you can imagine I almost fell out of my chair. Plan B is over, I am now free to live out my plan A that was well underway before I lost my job. It is a scary road ahead as I am my only source of income, but God's hand is in all of this and He will provide.
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