If you’ve been around me for any length of time then you know that I am fond of saying that God always has a plan for each of us. Sometimes we like how His plan unfolds for us and sometimes we can become disappointed in how the plan unfolds.
I have also mentioned a Bible study that Diane and I did many years ago called “Experiencing God” and in that study one of the things that I learned was to look back at my life and learn to connect the spiritual markers, things that have happened in my life, orchestrated by God to bring me to where I am today.
Some of the things that God has done and is currently doing were really easy to accept and some them were not so easy to accept. But no matter what the things were that God did to bring me to where I’m at today I can’t argue with the results and I have learned to not argue with Him about how He chooses to work in my life.
What about you today? If you haven’t come to the same conclusions that I have about how God works in your lives then I would strongly recommend that you get with God in prayer and ask Him to help you to understand who is really in charge of our lives. Our God is sovereign and He always has a plan!
In Romans chapter 11 verses 33-34 we read this: 33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR?
And in Isaiah chapter 55 verse 8-11 we read this: 8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. 10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth And making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; 11 so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.
No matter what’s happening in our lives today we have to believe and have faith that God has a plan for whatever it is that is happening to us at any given time.
In Romans chapter 8 verse 28 we read this: 28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
I want to share a little insight into the Frazier household and I want you to hear what I’m going to say with this verse in mind.
I’m going to go back in time, back to when I was transferred to the place that I work today. If you will remember, I was lamenting the fact that I was being moved and how I thought it was such a bad thing and how unhappy I was with that decision.
Well, now that is has been two years since I was transferred, and I had to look back and recognize the spiritual markers that God had placed in my life since then. Since that time, Gannett has become increasingly unstable especially in the areas that I used to work in. Little did I know that Gannett would decide to close Diane’s office, which I worked out of, and that alone would have probably ended my time with the company.
And just this week Gannett laid off another 120 people and among those were many of my rack repair colleagues as well as a few of the people that I worked very closely with in Nashville. I would probably have been one of the 120 people laid off even if I had survived the closing of Diane’s office. God is sovereign and God has a plan!
Moving forward in time, I applied for a job at Honeywell here in Murfreesboro and I didn’t get the job. As strange as it may sound that was a good thing! Little did I know that I was going to have a heart attack and if I had changed jobs there was no guarantee that I would have been on their insurance plan yet and that would have devastated my family’s finances. God is sovereign and He has a plan!
And speaking of health issues, the heart attack that I had has actually helped me and my family to see that we needed to make some major lifestyle changes. I am finally going to get my sleep apnea fixed, lose some weight that I already knew that I needed to lose, and start exercising like I should.
And while most people would look at what happened to me as being a bad thing I have to look at it as a blessing! None of these things happened without God knowing about them. In fact I know that it was Him that orchestrated them for my benefit. God is sovereign and He has a plan!
And look at all the health issues that folks here at MKBC have faced lately. Gerald had hurt his leg, Arnie has had blood sugar issues that landed him in the hospital this week, Joe McElderry and his COPD issues, I mean just look at our prayer request list! But God is sovereign and He has a plan!
I know that it seems counter intuitive to most people to be happy about not getting a job that we thought that we wanted, be transferred out of a position that we loved, and say that having a heart attack is a blessing but that’s because we as
Christians are different from most people in the world.
But like I said we need to look at what I have just talked about through the prism of Romans 8:28: And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
We will always face trials and tribulations in our Christian walk. Lost people are not immune from trials and tribulations either. What’s important for us to remember is that we have a Savior who is walking with us through all of our trials and we can face them and still smile because God will use all of our life experiences to make us more like Jesus Christ every day.
And while it may be really easy to get discouraged and down when we are enduring various trials and tribulations, I want to read to you a very powerful passage of Scripture and it is found in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 verses 8-9: 8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…
God is always with us no matter what we are going through. We will all be afflicted at some point in our lives and some of us are being afflicted right now but we will not be destroyed by our afflictions because our God is greater than our afflictions!
Sometimes we don’t understand why things are happening to us but the wonderful thing about this is that if we trust in God then we won’t despair. It’s okay to get perplexed and even to despair for a moment but we, as believers, can’t stay in a constant state of despair because we serve a great God who loves us and will help us to understand our circumstances in His time and not ours.
I was struck down for a time with my heart attack but I wasn’t destroyed and that is because God is good! God has lifted me back up and He has a plan for me and I want to be a part of that plan no matter how God decides to work out His plan in my life. What about you? Will you welcome the plan that God has for you no matter what that plan entails? No matter what he requires us to do? God is sovereign and we have to defer to Him in all things at all times!
At the end of the day, we as believers have to come to understand that many of our blessings in life come through trials and tribulations. And we have to not only acknowledge this is true but we have to embrace it in our hearts and minds as truth!
The Apostle Paul wrote this about how to be happy and content no matter what was going on in his life and these words will help us today if we will do what he wrote in Philippians chapter 4verses 11-13: 11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
Paul was able to write this to us because he had learned to trust in the Lord and he knew who was taking care of him. We have to stop leaning on ourselves and learn to lean on the Lord and trust that He is taking care of us even when we can’t see the whole picture.
I want to close this morning’s sermon with a song that conveys what I have been trying to get across to you today. I think that this song is very well written and it tells us to look at our trials and tribulations through the eyes of God even though that can be difficult as I can attest to. The song is called “Blessings” and it is sung by Laura Story.
