God’s Good Plan

God’s Good Plan

GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks: “Exactly as I planned, it will happen. Following my blueprints, it will take shape.”

Isaiah 14:24 (THE MESSAGE)

When I was young, I used to wish I was born in the days when the American prairie was being settled. It seemed to be such a simple and exciting time. I believed that families spent more time together. Maybe the seeds of that longing are the reason why I’m so interested in the Amish today. Yet if God had wanted me to be born Amish, He could have made that happen. God makes the blueprints for our lives, and then He constructs them into our reality.

No matter where you live or what challenges you face, this is the life the Lord has constructed for you, for me. Not the bodies, health, or circumstances we wish we’d had, or the perfect lives we can never attain, but the blueprints by which He is constructing us.

Why did He choose me to be born to a single mom? Why did He choose my grandmother to be born to an immigrant family and live in a boxcar during her growing-up years? Why are others born into lives of privilege? According to Acts 17:27, “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us.”

The challenges the Amish face lead them to the place where they realize they cannot live this life without God. It is the same for the rest of us. The challenges we face bring us to the place of surrender, of acknowledging our need. Because of who God created us to be—and the families and places He set us in—we will need to seek Him. God is not far from any of us. He wants to make sure we look for Him until we find Him.

Dear heavenly Father, my longing for You and needing You are not signs that I’m weak. Instead they are indications that Your plan for me has worked after all.