Truth: God has a good plan.
Lie: How can His plan be good when this doesn't feel good?
Many are the plans in a person's heart: We all have our own plans for our lives, don't we? You know what you want out of life on some level. Maybe you don't have life figured out and that's ok too. But I'm sure you at least have some idea of where you want to be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years. There's not just one plan either. There are many. If Plan A doesn't work, there's got to be a Plan B, Plan C, etc. Without realizing it, our hearts do a lot of planning about how our lives should be and the kind of people we want to become. It's a wonderful thing to look ahead to your future and dream big, but it's not the same as God's plan. Your plans may get derailed-completely off course-so that God's purpose can be fulfilled. The plans I had for my life are definitely not playing out like I had hoped. That doesn't mean I am unhappy, but sometimes I don't understand why God isn't letting my life go according to my plan.
Yikes. Take a minute to think about that. Have you ever felt that way? I listened to a message recently and Pastor Craig Groeschel explains God's purpose so well: "You don't have to understand the plan to trust God's purpose. Just because you don't understand, doesn't mean God isn't good." Instead of focusing on what you think your life should look like, maybe you need to shift your focus to God's purpose, which will reveal a good plan for your life. The best plan, actually.
But it is the Lord's purpose that prevails: God loves us so much, but He's not worried about how we feel when He wrecks our perfectly laid out plans. Yeah, you heard me right. He knows it won't feel good when He proves His plan is better than ours. We don't always understand, but God knows what He's doing. God is good and He has a good plan for your life. It might mean you don't get what you want, your plans are delayed, or you feel a deep hurt. Regardless of the process, God is still good. It's not always easy to believe that. Sometimes we get mad at God because His plan doesn't align with ours. He doesn't come and meet our expectations like we thought He would. Here's the beautiful thing about that..."If God always met your expectations, He'd never have the opportunity to exceed them" (Craig Groeschel, When God Doesn't Make Sense). What we expect is not what God has planned. For example, "Mary and Martha expected a healing for their brother Lazarus. Jesus planned a resurrection." How much better was Jesus' plan?! Mary and Martha were hurting. They were both grieving after their brother's death and wondering why Jesus didn't show up to heal him. When God's good plan unfolded, they were so grateful He exceeded their expectations, the hurt they once felt dissipated.
Our plans are so different from God's plan because the expected result is not the same. Our intentions may be good, but our plans lean toward the temporary stuff of this world.
Our plans are:
-selfish
-manipulative
-temporary
-impatient
-"quick fix"
-expected
-small minded
God's plan is:
-selfless
-kind
-eternal
-patient
-timely
-better than expected
-beyond human understanding
I know this sounds kind of harsh, but I do believe our plans can get in the way of God's purpose. Sometimes we try to manipulate people or situations to benefit us and we don't even realize it. God will allow us to do so because in the end, we'll recognize just how selfish our plans were and how much better His purpose is. You may feel a deep hurt when your life doesn't go according to your plan, but God will heal that hurt in His time.
You don't have to understand to trust God's good plan.
~Plans~
You have your life planned out
Down to the last detail
Your dreams, your goals, your plans
Carefully laid out in order
Then one day, life doesn't go according to your plan
A point on your list has been skipped
Your plans went awry
Even though you tried to rewrite and pencil things in next time,
Your plans did not succeed
Everything seemed to fall apart
Finally, you had to realize
You had no control from the start
Life doesn't follow your plan
It follows His
And the tiniest details, the things you felt you had missed, start to become clear
All along, God has been here
Interrupting your dreams and messing up your perfect plans
But it was in the imperfect, God was working on you
His carefully laid out plans overshadowed your own
For His master plan was greater than anything you could've known
God's plan is not always meant for us to comprehend, but it is always good. You may get hurt in the process, but it isn't because God doesn't love you. It's because He loves you so much that He doesn't want to see you fall when you try to execute the plans you have for your life. Sometimes He does allow it to happen but then He allows His plan to exceed our expectations.
It's hard to do, but be thankful when life doesn't go your way. God could be making room for something greater than what you expected.
We have many plans for our lives, but God's purpose will prevail. Trust the process. It's a good plan.