God’s Leading

I believe that God has a plan for every person but many will never fulfill that plan because of different factors.  Sometimes people never give God a chance to work the plan out in their life because they refuse to believe that He exists.  Some have been deceived into thinking that God could never use them or that He doesn’t want to.  Some are comfortable just getting their feet in the door of heaven, so to speak, and are happy watching everyone else fulfilling the plan that God has for their life.  Others may be scared that the Lord may want to send them to another country where they do not want to go.  Others may not understand what God is doing in their lives and when things don’t go the way they think they should, they drop out. There are many reasons why God’s plan isn’t completed in people’s lives and none of them are God’s fault.

Who can fully know the mind of God and how He works in individual’s lives?  It says this in Isaiah 55:8-9:

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts.

Earlier this morning I was reading about Joseph and how God led him and I thought about some of the things that happened to him as God’s plan was unfolding and what Joseph went through for God’s plan to be fulfilled in his life.  You can read the whole story of Joseph in Genesis chapters 37 through 50, but I just want to hit on some of the events that happened in Joseph’s life as God’s plan was being played out in his life.  

First I will start with Jacob, Joseph’s father loving Joseph more than all of his other eleven sons, making him a coat of many colors causing his brothers to be very jealous of him and ultimately hating him.  Then Joseph had two dreams that he shared with them saying basically that he would rule over them some day.  When Joseph told his family about these dreams he had no idea what he would have to face before those dreams would be fulfilled in his life.  If he did, maybe he would have run in another direction like Jonah did when God wanted him to go to Nineveh and warn the people to repent or be destroyed.  Jonah chose to run in that situation but God got his attention the hard way before he fulfilled the plan that God had for his life, God has His way of doing that.  

Let’s get back to Joseph’s story, his brothers hated him so much that they decided to throw him into a pit to die but then changed their minds and sold him to some Ishmaelites that were going to Egypt.  They went back home and lied to their father, saying Joseph was dead.  He then was sold to a man in Egypt called Potiphar, the captain of the guard under Pharaoh.  Potiphar’s wife lied about Joseph and Potiphar had him thrown into prison.   At this point you may be wondering if Joseph even thought about the dreams.  If I remember right, I think he spent two years in prison when Pharaoh had two dreams that no one could interpret, so Joseph was called on to interpret the dreams, which he did with God’s help.  He then became second in command of all Egypt under Pharaoh.  Before it was all over, Joseph’s whole family did bow down to him and God used him to save his family.  Joseph had fulfilled God’s plan for his life.

Sometimes it will take a certain amount of sacrifice and even suffering to accomplish the plan of God in our lives, but when it is all said and done, you will be very happy you didn’t run.  Think about the plan God had for Paul’s life; he suffered much and in the end was beheaded.  I don’t think he ever regretted any of it, his purpose was to honor God and to fulfill his calling no matter what the cost and he always encouraged those in the churches that he started, to do the same.  

The problem I see today is that if anything goes wrong in our Christian walk or our ministries or what we think is God’s plan for our lives we are always so quick to blame the evil one and that may not be the case at all; it may be that God has chosen to use those situations to bring about growth and faith in our lives.  What I need to do, and you also, is to keep our eyes and mind on God and the goal that God has set before us and stop the blame game and accept the circumstances and situations we don’t understand, continuing on to fulfill the plan that God has for our lives.  All those that went before us and overcame had to do the same.  Something to think about and may the good Lord bless you and may your day be a blessed one!