God's Will 101: Scrapping Every Plan You Had for Your Life

Jeremiah 29: 11-13
11 For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart.

I remember my first time hearing this passage – my last semester of college. I sat in Mizzou’s Black Culture Center computer lab unsure of what my next move in life would be. I literally had no clue.

If you’ve read this blog, you know I was amidst one of the most trying times in my life. My father was stricken with some sort of rare incurable, slow moving cancer. My mother’s mother was gravely ill. I had just received an offer for an internship at Newsday in Long Island, New York, that I didn’t really expect, and wasn’t sure if that was in the direction of my heart. My personal life seemed to be in shambles, and I knew not where to look for help. In those dark moments, I turned to the only light had ever really known.

I immersed myself in a chat with a good friend about my options, and she sent me to the aforementioned passage.

It struck a chord within me. The connection between this passage and another one, Psalms 37:4, shed some light on my situation.

Psalms 37:4
Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

I knew that if I wanted what I believed to be in my heart – to come home and write for the local paper I grew up reading – I had to follow a direct and narrow path of His righteousness and His will. I had to let all aspects of my life go, and Let Him work his miracles.

When I did, it was done.

All of the ignorance I knew amid my struggle ceased to be. Everything I truly desired within my heart I received. I could testify for days on this small frame of my life, but in the end, the only thing that’s left is the message – desire him before all, and he will give you what floods your heart.

I know a few of you – myself included (don’t think I’m writing this and not heeding my own message within my own current struggle) – are amid a moment where open and promising doors are closing or things aren’t going as planned.

All I can say is don’t be discouraged. In the end, your plan never was meant to succeed. It has and will always fail you. The only accord you can follow, is that of the Maker’s, understanding that He has a plan for you and I, for all of us.

It consists of a means of an end of just hoping for a bright future, even though we currently dwell in an unforgiving moment.