Does God Have a Plan For Our Lives?

Does God have a plan for our lives? What about times of disaster? If there is a God and he has a perfect plan for our lives, why do things sometimes go horribly wrong? God is still there pulling the threads together into what will eventually be a beautiful pattern, even though everything is entangled and it may seem like a complete mess.

God looked after Elijah during a famine. Elijah declared to King Ahab that there would be no rain for 3 years. God told Elijah to go and live by a brook. He drank water from the brook and the ravens provided him with bread and meat twice a day. 1Kings 17:1-7. Eventually the drought became so severe that the brook dried up too. Then Elijah met a widow gathering sticks for firewood. He asked her for food. She said that she had only enough flour and oil to make one meal for herself and her son and then they would die. Elijah told her to go and make the meal but first to bring him a bread cake, then she could return and make one for herself and her son. She did this. The Lord God looked after the widow and her family and the oil and the flour never ran out while Elijah stayed with them during the famine. 1Kings 17:8-16.

This is God's pattern. We are expected to give out of our poverty. We are not expected to keep all of our money to ourselves, and give nothing, thinking that we are anxious about being able to meet our own needs. God will not bless us if we do this. We should give generously out of our poverty and then God will bless us. 2Corinthians 8:1-5. The Christians in Macedonia gave generously and sacrificially out of their poverty. They also gave joyfully, not reluctantly or under compulsion. 2Corinthians 9:6-11. God promises to meet their needs. Those who generously will reap generously.

We need to live in total submission to God if we are to know his will. We need to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God and to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Romans 12:1,2. When we are at peace with God and our mind is set on him, we will experience the peace of knowing his pleasing and perfect will. We shall know whether we are doing anything that is against his will because it would disturb that sense of peace. We should let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. Colossians 3:12-17. This also means living at peace with other Christians and belonging to a church where we can encourage and help one another. When we belong to Jesus we become his sheep and we learn to hear his voice. The shepherd doesn't lead the sheep with his stick, he leads them with the sound of his voice. John 10:1-6. The sheep know the voice of the shepherd and if a stranger comes to take charge of the sheep they will not follow him.

In a difficult situation we should come to God in prayer for wisdom. If any man lacks wisdom he should ask God but that man must believe that he has received from God, for he who does not believe is like a wave blown and tossed by the sea, and will not receive anything. James 1:5-8. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5,6. When I was unemployed I fasted and prayed for a day and went for a walk in the park. God spoke to me very clearly and said that this time of unemployment would be a time of great learning and that the time of great learning would come to an end. At the time I didn't know what this really meant. Looking back on it many years later, I can see how all the voluntary work, college courses and the university course in Electronics I did when I was unemployed took me in a particular direction and gave me the skills I needed to do the job I do today. It was a chance conversation with a church member who suggested that I did a training course in issuing Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) for new houses that led me to become self employed. I trained for many years in computers and engineering at college and university, all of which is a very helpful background for the skills that I need in this job. I formed a partnership and employed another church member who was in his fifties and unlikely to find work. When I have had work in the past, I always took years to get a job, but there would be someone there I was supposed to meet. At the Inland Revenue I met a woman who persuaded me to record all the songs I had written since I was a teenager on cassette tape and share them with my friends. This included several Christian songs. The woman herself was a strong Roman Catholic and seemed very close to finding Jesus. When I did nurse training, I applied to thirty different health authorities and was only accepted by Hastings, 300 miles away from where we lived in Gateshead. My job in Hastings did not last long as I was admitted to hospital with depression. In the hospital, I met another patient who seemed right on the verge of becoming a Christian.

So God does have a plan for my life, in and out of all the struggles and the disasters. As one church pastor said, who had recently had a heart attack, it is like a work of embroidery with tangled threads on one side and a beautiful picture on the other. All things work together for the good of those who trust in God. Romans 8:26-39. Nothing shall separate us from the love of God. Neither trouble, hardship, evil or death. When you go through the waters, I will be with you, when I go through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you pass through the fire you will not be burned, the flames will not set you ablaze. Isaiah 43:1,2.