Plan B

So many times in my life I have had a "plan" for my life, and for whatever reason it didn't quite turn out the way I had planned. Which made it time for PLAN B. 

 Take for example the picture I had of my life ever since I was a little girl.... I was going to grow up, go to a great college, and the summer after college I was going to marry the man of my dreams in a wedding that was fit for Bride's magazine. Two years later, three max, I was going to quit my job to start a family with this amazing man in our little suburban home. Life would be glorious! 

 Well my life didn't exactly go as planned. I have been out of college for four years with a career as a kindergarten teacher, bought my own home, and am graduating with my masters in May. Not a bad life by any means but it still wasn't my "plan A." I thought in my perfect world I would be doing all of that with "the one." As I'm sitting here ready to go to another bridal shower that is not my own it's easy to think I am living PLAN B. 

 But here is my AMAZING reality: With God there is NO PLAN B! In Psalms 139:16 it says "Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day."

 I have chosen to allow God to write the story of my life and of this season. Even when the enemy tries to attack and tell me that I will never have the "fairy tail" I know that I am exactly where I need to be. Where I am in life, where you are in life, is no surprise to God it is His exact and perfect plan for you and me. In the Word it says His thoughts for us out number the grains of sand.

 I once heard an amazing speaker say " God has plucked you out of eternity for this time in history where you can best glorify and serve Him." That, to me, sounds like we have an incredibly strategic God. A God with a plan that will not be thwarted. A god who doesn't work on plan Bs only on strategic and purposed plan As. 

 If you relate at all to this post, and I hope you don't mind how raw and honest this post was, I encourage you to read Psalms 139 in The Message Bible. It is a beautiful picture and reminder of Gods faithfulness to you. It speaks directly about his infatuation with YOU, not your best friend, not that girl that has the "perfect" life, but you. He is CRAZY about you!

Psalm 61:2

Being overwhelmed is a feeling that can come along with almost any emotion. Just think of the girl graduating college, planning her wedding, having her first baby. All of these things are so exciting but also have their moments of leaving you feeling overwhelmed. Unfortunately, most of us are all too familiar with the feeling of being overwhelmed with worry, heartache, and just life in general.

This verse is so powerful it literally brings tears to my eyes when I look at it. It definitely does not need any further explanation, but I thought I would share some things God deposited in my spirit as I was meditating on this scripture tonight.

If you’re being lead to a rock that is higher …

…You must LOOK UP.

When you are climbing a mountain it’s important to look up. When your focus is up your heart is set towards God and not on the situation that has left you feeling overwhelmed.

…You will gain a new outlook

The higher you get the further you can see, but you also aren’t able to see the small details you were able to see when you were closer to the ground. These small details of life are what often lead us to feeling overwhelmed. Our mind gets wrapped up in the small things and makes them catastrophic size issues. When you are on higher ground you can see further and you aren’t able to get distracted by the small details that ensnare us.

…You are able to quiet your spirit.

I’ve been on top of a few mountains and despite my incredible fear of heights there is something remarkably peaceful about being there. When you’re up on that mountain you are forced to leave it all behind because everything that is down below is no longer within your reach. We so often want to fix our overwhelming situations ourselves and then pray about it after when we have failed miserably.  Quiet your spirit and ask God for grace and strength first and then respond to His guidance.

 God is our rock. Let every overwhelming situation be an opportunity to lead you closer to Him.

God's "Naughty List"

“You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you. Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and hills.”

                                                                                              Deuteronomy 8:5-7 (NKJV)

                No one likes feeling like they’re in trouble, especially not with God. If we are honest with ourselves sometimes in those not so fun seasons or seasons of questioning everything around us and in us it is easy to feel like we have been put on Gods “naughty list.” We have all been there. We have all been in and through difficult and trying times, but what it is so important to realize in those times is that God is setting you up for something absolutely wonderful and amazing, something far beyond what you can ask, think or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). When we are in these places or seasons we need to be diligent and committed to walking in the ways of the Lord and staying faithful to His plan for our lives. If we don’t stay committed to God and seeing his plan to fulfillment our vision of Gods faithfulness and goodness becomes clouded and we aren’t able to see that something great lies just ahead. Then exactly what we don’t want to happen happens, we end up staying longer in a place we never wanted to be in to begin with because we haven’t allowed God to do the things in us he needs to, to be able to fully prepare us for what is ahead.  I truly believe that  just around the corner of your trial or difficult season is something so beautiful that you will look back on this time and say “it was so worth it.”

"Just"

This blog is called “Transparent, Honest, and True” so I am going to let you all in on a little secret…I really love celebrity news and gossip. You know shows like E! News, Keeping up with the Kardashians, People and US magazine. All of it! You too? Good, then keep reading, you might be able to relate.

I think we often look at celebrities on the red carpet and magazines and fantasize what their lives must be like. The parties the doors of influence that are open to them, the people they must know, the glamorous life they lead.  Then we look at our own lives and we go oh yeah there’s Angelina Jolie saving the world and here I am just hoping I don’t fail my test tomorrow or that I can get all my housework done before I am out of a weekend. I mean come on Angelina Jolie doesn’t even need to be part of the UN because she has the UN living in her own home with all of her kids from the 7 corners of the world. HELLO

SO often we look at these celebrities lives and become so discouraged when we look back at our own lives and we start putting limits on our lives by using the word JUST. Ever been there? I have.

Look at  Mark 2:1-3 He (Jesus) left there and returned to his hometown. His disciples came along. On the Sabbath, he gave a lecture in the meeting place. He made a real hit, impressing everyone. "We had no idea he was this good!" they said. "How did he get so wise all of a sudden, get such ability?"

But in the next breath they were cutting him down: "He's JUST a carpenter—Mary's boy. We've known him since he was a kid. We know his brothers, James, Justus, Jude, and Simon, and his sisters. Who does he think he is?" They tripped over what little they knew about him and fell, sprawling. And they never got any further.

In this passage other people were minimizing the work of Jesus, but it made me stop and wonder how many of us are minimizing our own work or where God has strategically placed us in our lives by saying I am just an office manager, secretary, stay at home mom, student, you fill in the blank?

Know with confidence that if you are deliberately seeking the will of God than God has you strategically placed there, and if God has a purpose for you and has anointed you to do it, where is the enemy going to attack you the most? It’s in the very area that God has anointed you. The enemy may be evil but he is not stupid!

Take these next few people for example.

Moses, Moses was “just” a shepherd who God called to release the Israelites from the Egyptian oppression.

David was” just” a shepherd that slain a giant.

 Esther was “just” a Jewish girl who saved her people from death

All of this came to be because they chose to see the power and purpose in their situations instead of remaining in the “just” mindset.

Remember: you are not “just” a mother you are nurturing the destiny of future world shakers. You are not just a student; you have the ability to reach people that everyone else has somehow let go unnoticed. You can be the face of love, the arms of comfort, and the voice of hope, change, and freedom in Jesus to anyone in your world if you open yourself up to allow God to do something supernatural through you. Start declaring yourself as more! Start declaring yourself a son or daughter of the most high, more than a conqueror, and anointed to do His work on earth.

Selah.

Be Still

I am sure many of you have heard of this verse before. It is like one of those verses you scribble on your notebook or you edit it into a beautiful picture of you lying on the beach while your tan body is glistening in the sun and your toes are in the sand. 

This is actually the verse God gave me for the year. Now if you know me at all, you know I have a VERY difficult time being still. If I am sitting I am shaking my foot, leg or whole body (yeah the person that shakes the whole row at church….that’s me!). If I am standing, I am rocking, twisting, or shaking my legs. I can’t even be still in bed; I am always twitching and rubbing my feet. And then there is my mind….I can analyze something in 206 ways in approximately 2.2 seconds and I can twist and turn something that is no big deal into a massive problem. Can you relate? So when God gave me this as my verse for the year my thought was “no God you have the wrong girl, remember it is impossible for me to be still...EVER!” Well, God didn’t change his mind and that is still my verse for 2012 so I thought I would share with you how I am learning to be still and rest in Him when that really isn’t in my type A personality.

I found a guy in the Bible that found it pretty hard to be still too, Abraham. Abraham was a very faithful servant of Gods for many years, but his deepest desire was to have a child and he is now about 76 and still has no son. 

Genesis 15:1-6

¹ After all these things, this word of God came to Abram in a vision: "Don't be afraid, Abram. I'm your shield. Your reward will be grand!"

 ^2-3 Abram said, "God, Master, what use are your gifts as long as I'm childless and Eliezer (ew Eliezer, who would want to give everything they own to some dude named Eliezar! I picture the witch in Snowhite, the one with the black and icky, long, nasty nails saying his name, Eliezer, in her deep creepy voice)  of Damascus is going to inherit everything?" Abram continued, "See, you've given me no children, and now a mere house servant is going to get it all."

 ⁴ Then God's Message came: "Don't worry, he won't be your heir; a son from your body will be your heir."

 ⁵ Then he took him outside and said, "Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants! You're going to have a big family, Abram!"

 ⁶ And he believed! Believed God! God declared him "Set-Right-with-God."

Yup, pretty sure Abraham is pumped! He even told his wife Sarah so she could share in his excitement too that they were going to be parents.

But, can you relate? Have you ever felt like God has given you a promise?  Or have you ever had one of those moments of feeling at peace knowing God has everything under control in your situation? After you feel like God has spoken to you or touched you, you are over the moon, at peace, and totally content. You are not questioning what God spoke to you. You take it at face value and believe that he is going to heal the sickness in your body, open the next door of opportunity, heal your relationship, or insert what you are believing for here.

Then like it did for Abraham and Sarah, time passes and you start to question what God “really” meant when He made that promise to you. Or you start to wonder if that peaceful feeling you had wasn’t just a moment. You start trying to take the whole promise into your own hands much like Sarah and Abraham did in Genesis 16. I can just see Sarah talking to Abraham saying: “You know, I bet what God really meant when He promised you a son is that you should sleep with my servant, Hagar, and let her have the baby and we will raise it!” ….and Abraham agreed that was a good idea.  

Well, let’s think about this, 2 girls going after 1 guy ALWAYS = T-R-O-U-B-L-E! Can I get an amen?

Well my point in this story is that we need to learn to be still and rest in God. A promise left in our own hands only means a delayed promise. By trying to take a God promise and achieve it by human means only caused heartache for them both (read on in Genesis 16 to find out more).  How often are we guilty of this? We hear from God then weeks, moths, years down the road when we haven’t seen the promise we try to achieve the promise on our own and show or tell God what He “really” meant. Your thinking might go something like this. God I know that you promised me this amazing man who loves Jesus and supports me and encourages me and treats me like the princess You created me to be, but I don’t really think he exists and Tim Tebow doesn’t even know I am alive. So I am just going to date this guy. He thinks I’m amazing and treats me pretty good and he doesn’t really have a great relationship with you but at least he prays every night. Nope, stop trying to take the situation into your own hands. It didn’t work for Abraham and it won’t work for you. God is a gentleman and He will let you exhaust every means to achieve the promise on your own until you come to him broken and say “I can’t do it anymore.” At that exact moment is the moment I picture God saying “I had hoped you would say that, now whatch what I can do!”

Personally, I would rather work on strengthening my “being still skills”  in God’s waiting room than delay what God has for me.

And if God has promised you something or there is a desire in your heart that has not been fulfilled: don’t settle you are ONE DAY closer to whatever you are believing for. It could be a family member to be healed, a financial breakthrough, a baby you’ve been praying you and your spouse will have, that right person to come into your life, whatever it is know that you never have to go through today again without it. You are one day close, don’t give in, don’t give up. Hold on to your convictions; our God is a faithful God.

If this is you at all I hope these scriptures help:

Hebrews 10:33 So don't throw it all away now. You were sure of yourselves then. It's still a sure thing! But you need to stick it out, staying with God's plan so you'll be there for the promised completion.

And one of my absolute favorites when being still and waiting on God is hard is

Romans 8:17-18 And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That’s why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times.

The Answer to Your Need is in Meeting the Needs of Others

Let’s be honest with ourselves, we all have needs in our lives right? It could be anything from needing a financial blessing, a husband, clarity from God in where your life is leading, healing in your own life or a family members, the list goes on and on.

Last week I was reading the story of Joseph, one that is familiar to many of us. It is a story of God’s faithfulness. I was reading the story in Genesis chapter 40 and stopped after I read verses 6 and 7.  Okay, before I continue let me set the context of the story if you are unfamiliar. Joseph was his fathers favorite son and was quite the dreamer. His brothers were envious and plotted to kill him but then thought on second thought, nah we will just sell him as an Egyptian slave. Well Potiphar, one of Pharoah's (the king) right hand men, saw that Gods hand was on Joseph and everything he put his hands to was blessed so he put him in charge of everything. Well, Potiphar's wife had a thing for Joseph and wanted to jump his bones, but when Joseph said no, she called rape on him and he was then thrown in prison where he meets the butler and the baker who recently ticked off the king. They are now in the same prison as Joseph. Now Genesis 40:6-7 (NKJV) “And Joseph came in to them in the morning and looked at them, and saw that they were sad. So he asked Pharaoh’s officers who they were with him in the custody of his Lord’s house, saying “Why do you look so sad today?”  After reading those to verses I paused.  I was kind of puzzled. I started thinking here is Joseph, I mean I know God was with him but in reality his brothers sold him into slavery after deciding it would be better than killing him, he was accused of rape by Potiphar’s wife , and now he is sitting in jail! Hello, maybe it is just me but I am pretty sure it is safe to say that Joseph had some need in his life. But the crazy part is that while it isn’t hard to see the need in his life, he was recognizing and meeting the need in two other people’s lives. By taking an interest in the butler and butcher he had his own need met because a few years later when Pharaoh needed his own dream interpreted and the butler remembered Joseph. When Pharaoh saw that God’s hand was on everything Joseph did he was not only released from prison but exalted and put in charge of all Pharaoh (the king of Egypt) possessed.  When I read this about Joseph it inspired me and I thought I want to be like him. I want to be someone who never gets so lost in my own needs that I miss the needs I can meet in others lives.  It would have been so easy for Joseph to never have said a word to the butler because he had plenty to worry about himself. Instead he cast his needs in the hands of Jesus and made a conscious choice to serve the needs of other amidst his own and was therefore set free from his own needs. Too often we miss the answers to our needs because we won’t answer the needs of others that God is strategically placing in our lives. Selah