God’s Plan, Right?
((Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you. Deuteronomy 31:6))
WOW! What a year it has been and what an AWESOME God we have! God’s grace and mercy are beyond my understanding! This year has been a year of fear, pain, and suffering but there has also been much joy! God is so good and He is ALWAYS faithful!!
I am very much a planner. It is in my personality, in my nature, in who I am. I like to know what is going to happen and when it is going to happen. I like to have a plan for what I am doing and what I am going to do. Sure I like surprises and I can be flexible but I like very much to have a plan. Last year I started the process to spend two years of my life overseas. I planned to leave in January and come back sometime in 2015. I thought very much that my plan was the plan that God had for me. Everything was coming together. I got my assignment, I had my support, I was saying goodbye, I was packing my bags, and I was printing out my airplane ticket! God had called me to this journey and I was ready to begin this journey! Or so I thought!
December came and I started to get this little feeling and I started to hear this little voice of uncertainty. Maybe I shouldn’t go overseas, maybe I was suppose to stay here. Maybe God had a different plan! But God could not have a different plan, He had called me to go overseas and He had opened every door to allow me this opportunity, if this was not God’s calling He would have shut the door long before now and this uncertainty had to be from fear or anxiety, right? God wants us to serve Him, He called me to do this and I was doing this. The people I loved supported me in this journey and that meant that it was a definite calling from God. I had just graduated with a degree in missions, this was God’s plan and I was going through with it. All I had heard for the past few years was go, and I love being overseas more than I like being in the states, and I was comfortable leaving home so God did call me to do this and I was going no matter what uncertainties I had and no matter what I heard the little voice saying. Thats it, I am leaving in January to go where God has called me. Or to go where I thought God had called me...
As December neared to the end the fear and uncertainty did not go away. I felt this uncertainty inside of me and I kept shoving it away, I kept telling myself that I was going because God had called me and He would take care of me. I could not tell these people who loved and supported me that after months of preparation and a sure calling from God that I was not going overseas. I could not tell them that it was not actually God’s plan for me right now, what would they say, what would they think? I could not allow myself not to go overseas, what was wrong with me? My hearts desire is to be with these people in other nations, to go and to serve, why was there uncertainty? Why did I feel like I should stay? This could not be from God, God did not want people to stay here, He wants people to go. Go, go, fulfill the great commission, go tell people, go to the nations, everything I had heard said to go and I was on the track to go so I must go. This has to be God’s plan and the uncertainty was my flesh, my feelings, my selfishness, my fear, right? God calls us to go not to stay home, right?
December ended and January came, three weeks until I am to be dropped off at the airport, three weeks until me and my bags board the plane and follow this plan God has for my life. January 1 came and my plans were shattered, my heart was broken, and the reason for the uncertainty surfaced. God truly had another plan. In this plan there would be pain and suffering that I had not expected. Pain and suffering were not in my plan, but sometimes pain and suffering our in God’s plan so that we grow in Him and we learn to praise Him in all things, including the storm. For many months I had been praying about one thing in particular: where did God want me to serve, what did He want me doing in this season of my life? I had not been in church as a child, I only began going to church while in high school. I had been going to the same church for nearly ten years and I loved the people, this church had become my family and they walked with me through many trials in my life. Sometime last year, I can not really explain it, but I felt like it might be time for me to serve somewhere else. I did not want to leave this family of mine, I could not understand why I would have this feeling other than maybe selfish reasons, God was not calling me from my church, He brought me there, and put these people in my life to love me when I needed love the most. God was not calling me to leave, this was my own selfish flesh. God wanted me to stay and serve this church. As the year ended and the doors opened for me to serve overseas, I knew why I had this feeling earlier in the year, God was not calling me to leave this church, He was calling me overseas. Now it made sense, my church would support me and I would serve overseas. When I told my church, they did indeed support me and encourage me, and this confirmed to me that this was God’s plan. If they were so supporting and encouraging of me fulfilling the great commission and God had called me to go this had to be God’s plan, right?
January 1 my prayers were answered, I received confirmation from the Lord, and I had to be obedient. I had been praying for much of 2012 that God would show me what He needed me to do, where He needed me to serve, I had been praying about whether or not I was to stay at my church or whether He was truly calling me away. On January 1 I got the confirmation that God was indeed calling me away from the only church I knew, He was calling me to “leave” this family, and to serve Him somewhere else. Somewhere else, really? Somewhere else, meaning not overseas? This was not my plan, this was not what I wanted! But I did want to be obedient, I just wish obedience meant overseas and not the pain and suffering that was soon to come. Leaving a place I had been for ten years, leaving a family that had loved me and supported me in so much of my life, this was not what I wanted to do, but this was God’s plan. I thought maybe I had created this idea because I had a little anxiety about going overseas, I had a little fear about leaving those I love. I sought godly council, and through that it was confirmed. God’s plan was for me to stay, for me to leave this church who I loved dearly. His plan was for me to be here!
Not going overseas was hard, my hearts desire is to be in the nations. Leaving a church who loved me and supported me was far from easy. There was much pain, there is still pain. But I have to trust God. This year there has been much uncertainty, and much pain, but God. God used last year to teach me so much. I would not trade any of it for anything. God used the time preparing to go overseas to reveal to me the grace He has poured out on my life. God has poured His grace on me and healed many wounds so that I can serve Him! God used that time to teach me that I do love people and I do have the heart to serve Him in the nations but there are some places in my life that I need to grow in Him. God used this year to teach me that pain and suffering can be used to grow in Him! God has been and will always be faithful! God has taught me that He does call us to go and it may be His plan for me later but right now I need to trust Him and let Him make the plans. He is in control, I do not always need to plan, I need to rest in Him.
The point of this blog, I do not really know. I just know that God is good and He is faithful. Sometimes we have the best intentions and we come up with the “best plans,” but God! His plans and His timing are ALWAYS better than ours! Trust Him, rest in Him, let Him lead and you follow! Enjoy today, enjoy salvation in Him, enjoy this minute, enjoy this breath He has given you!
((And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens:they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow:they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Luke 12: 22-34.))
