Devotional for 1/10/2013

My Plan and God’s Plan

The other day I was texting with one of my friends from school, and we were discussing “The Next Step.” We both graduate at some point this year, her in May and myself in December. We were talking about hopes and dreams, mixed with a little bit of worries and fears. Our conversation ended like this:

Friend: “Yeah… It’ll be fun and exciting I’m sure!! :)  God does His thing no matter what.”

Me: “Unfortunately :P”

Friend: “??? What”

Me: “I have a plan, too! Now that I pretty much have the whole world figured out, I wish He would go with mine sometimes!”

I was joking, of course, but I kind of meant it. This past semester I went through some stuff that I prayed diligently for all semester. The final outcomes were the very results I had prayed would not happen! I was not happy. So, after hearing the news contrary to my prayers, I was searching through the Scriptures:

“God works for the good of those who love Him.”

 Romans 8:28 (NIV)

            “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

 Psalm 37:4 (NLT)

I know I read some other equally convincing verses, but I spent the next two days severely scolding God whenever we happened to be alone together. I kept asking how He could have such a skewed perspective of “good” and why He wouldn’t want the outcome, or my version of ‘good’, I had been praying for.

After two days of that, I decided to look at scripture again, but this time I looked for answers, and I found one:

"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.”            

            Isaiah 55:8-9 (NLT)

 

Bummer. Not the answer I was hoping for. I was kind of hoping that I would have a Moses moment, and God would come down and say, “Okay, because you asked, I’ve changed my mind about destroying the Israelites.” But instead I had a Job moment as God reminded me that He alone is God (see Deuteronomy 32:39) and He alone is Good (see Luke 18:19).

I am so grateful to know that God doesn’t think like I think. I believe that God does work everything out for good, and I can’t wait to find out what His idea of “good” is, because it so outweighs my own idea that I can’t possibly imagine where He is going with this. But I am excited to find out. Looking forward, I do have a plan, an idea of what is going to happen in the short term, and I do hope God takes my plan into consideration. However, whichever parts He chooses to include in the long term and the garbage He throws out the window is all fine with me. Because I know, in the end, His Good will blow me away.

Written by Lizzy Wilkins