Fulfilling God’s Plan His Way

God’s journey for us in life rarely looks like a straight line arrow. It often looks more like zig-zagging line with lots of twists and turns along the way. Some of this is our doing; some of it is His; and in His sovereign mercy, He is weaving it all together into an amazing tapestry of faithfulness. Where we sometimes get into trouble in walking with the Lord is when we put our expectations about HOW our desires are going to be fulfilled ahead of the God who intends to fulfill them. We see this happen in the Bible with Abram.

Transcript

God’s journey for us in life rarely looks like a straight line arrow.  It often looks more like zig-zagging line with lots of twists and turns along the way.  Some of this is our doing; some of it is His; and in His sovereign mercy, He is weaving it all together into an amazing tapestry of faithfulness.

Where we sometimes get into trouble in walking with the Lord is when we put our expectations about HOW our desires are going to be fulfilled ahead of the God who intends to fulfill them.  We see this happen in the Bible with Abram.

In Genesis 15:5-6, it says, “God took Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them – and so shall your offspring be.”  And Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

As we read on, we find out that Abram is about 90 years old when God gives him this vision of his future.  God says to the 90-year-old Abram, “I am going to make you to be the father of many nations”.

Abram goes home to his wife Sarai in Genesis chapter 16 and tells her all about God’s promise, and Sarai, who is about 80 at the time, has not been able to bear any children to Abram throughout their marriage to this point.  So she and Abram come up with a plan to make God’s promise to them come true.  Sarai gives her maidservant, Hagar, to Abram, so that he can become a father through her and thus fulfill God’s promise.

So, Abram and Sarai try force God’s plan to come about their own way, and it goes all wrong.  It all becomes a big mess – and it never really gets resolved.  10 more years pass, and finally Sarah and Abraham have a son together, the son of God’s promise, named Isaac.

So here’s a quick lesson for us here is this story: Don’t worship the promise.  Worship the Promiser.  Don’t worship the dream OR your plan for how that dream is going to be fulfilled.  Worship, instead, the One who already has a good plan to fulfill it.

One of Abraham’s 12 great-grandsons, Joseph – he had some actual dreams when he was 17.  He dreamt that all his brothers, and even his father and mother, would come bow down to him one day.

Not long after having this dream, Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery.  3 years later he was in jail for a crime he did not commit.  Joseph suffered through 13 years of slavery and wrongful imprisonment before his dream would be fulfilled, and he could have never predicted the way God would bring it about.

Dream big dreams with the Lord!  He is a big and mighty God!  And work together with Him to take steps toward reaching those dreams – but don’t worship your dream.  And come up with a scheme to try to force your dream to come true apart from God.  If God changes your plan, trust Him, and go with Him.  He is trustworthy.  He knows what He is doing.  Even when I cannot see Him working, God is working still.