Knowing God's Plan

Life's Like This — Sometimes the paths that God sets for our lives are not the shortest, most direct routes, or at least that is how it appears. Quite often, we want to get to our destination on our own time schedule rather than exercising the patience needed to arrive at our destination according to God's plan. Knowing God's plan for our lives and what blessings He has in store for us are questions that many of us seek to know the answers to. It would be nice if we could just give God a phone call, or meet Him for a cup of coffee to discuss questions we have and to learn all the details we need to live our lives fully and in accordance with His plans for us. But God does not work that way; He wants us to exercise faith and trust in HIs Word that whenever we come before Him in prayer, that He will hear us and answer the burning questions we have in His time and in a manner that He chooses. And He wants us to know that He has our back, that He is always looking over our shoulder, keeping an eye on the road ahead, and speaking to us through the Holy Spirit with words of comfort and guidance as we face the trials of life. If truth be told, most of us are not willing to wait on God. We want His blessings now, on our own time schedule, and in a manner or way that we choose.

Willing to Wait

Life’s Like This — From the mundane to the profound moments of our lives — from waiting on traffic lights and elevators to the end of suffering or the fulfillment of dreams — life gives us no choice but to wait. Yet waiting is not a quality that most of us can honestly say we have, in fact, patience seems to be a virtue in short supply. In our fast paced, hectic world, patience seems to be eluding all of us in some degree or another. It isn’t surprising to find ourselves caught up in situations where it would be helpful to have that extra degree of patience to help us get through a difficult situation or even seemingly insignificant moments that can cause us undue stress. There are some of us that seem to have the patience of Job, a man that lived a very faithful and righteous life, yet endured one infliction after another without ever cursing God’s name. It would be nice if we could all lay claim to the example of Job, but unfortunately, we instead get frustrated or angry with the situation we are confronted with and often resort to behavior that is shameful or simply immature. And when we lose patience in any given situation, it is, in most cases, ourselves that suffer the consequences of our behavior.

Planting Seeds For Christ

Life’s Like This — Never underestimate what the Lord is doing in your life. You may not think it’s important, but it is. What you say to people, how you treat others, the way you handle adversity — God uses these things to reveal himself to the world. When you stand for righteousness and refuse to compromise, you are bearing a witness for Him. [Source: Charles Stanley] — Living your life for Christ is a challenge beyond all challenges. It entails a devotion to reflecting Christ-like behavior, actions, and thoughts in every area of your life. If doing this sounds like an impossible task, it’s because it is. This is the dilemma all christians face in their walk with Christ. While we may have a faith that is unshakable, the realities of life, coupled with our sinful nature, cause us to fall short in our efforts to reflect the life of Christ. We owe our failures to sin that we have allowed to take root and infect the way we think, the way we respond, and the way we act toward ourselves and others. For many of us, we may have doubts that we can ever be used by God — we may think that we are such failures that there is no way that God can find anything redeeming in us that can be used to serve Him. Yet, despite our short-comings, God can use us just the way we are to reveal Himself to others. We just need to allow Him to come into our hearts so that we can be molded into a character that reflects His love for all of us.