Why do some people seem to skate through life while others struggle with putting their skates on? I thought I would not only skate through life but have amazing form and beautiful jumps! At the age of 16, I had my life all planned out: I started dating my first boyfriend when I was 18, then finished my BA degree at age 19, and already had a job with my AA degree in dental assisting. By 25, I wanted to be married and have four kids as a stay-at-home mother. To my dismay, my first boyfriend and I didn’t work out. Within the next six years to where I am now, I’m still working full-time at the dental office, experienced three more relationships, and just fell again from being engaged to single.
What happened? Was God’s will not my will too? Was I not listening or obeying Him? Or was I doing what I wanted?
As we can see, I’m on thin ice and my plan didn’t pan out, but now I hear God asking me to have faith and obedience in His plan. It is not easy, but I’m choosing to fully surrender my life plans over to God. I’m sure many of you can relate to my situation of plans not following through. God shared with me in Proverbs 19:21 that “[m]any are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” As I have been reading recently, the concept that Henry Blackaby brings up in the book Experiencing God is: God is concerned at how something is done so He gets the glory.
An example of this in the Bible is with Cain and Abel. They are brothers who both worked hard and both gave offerings to God. “The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.” (Gen 4:5a). As we see here, one offering was accepted and one wasn’t. God then said to Cain, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?” (Gen 4:7). We see here that Cain chose not to do what God required and therefore was not looked upon with favor but rather disobedience.
Are we more like Cain or Abel? I was definitely more like Cain, and I will probably make more Cain decisions, but my heart wants to be an Abel. Do we work hard to please God our way or do we listen to what God wants us to do? It’s a new skate of mind. Searching in 1 John 1:5a, we may be convicted by Christ’s definition of love: “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments”. If you claim to love God, are you walking in obedience to Him?
“If your plans and purposes are not God’s, you will not experience God working through
you” and “Just because we accomplished our plans does not mean we are pleasing to God.” (pg 100). God indeed cares how we live our life and how we follow through on His work in us.
I’ll end with this verse that means a lot to me: “But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus-the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.” Acts 20:24
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