God’s Plan

Life can be both beautiful and down right challenging at times. Perhaps one of the greatest challenges facing us when we are young school leavers, is deciding what to do next. It is not made any easier when our friends know what they want to study, what professions they want to pursue and harder still, when they are eyeing overseas universities and will leave you behind. What about if you have to join the world of work because there is just no money at home to send you on to university?

As much as we long to leave the confines of school, we quickly realise that there was actually a measure of security there. For one thing, we weren’t faced with the daunting task of deciding what to do with our lives or in other instances, we had no one deciding it for us. Indeed, some parents, in their zeal to see their children succeed, try to decide their career path. There are those who are advised to choose careers that are lucrative and are guided to study subjects that promise jobs with hefty pay cheques, even though their hearts are somewhere else.

While parents want the best for their children, their children have to live with the decisions that they have made for the rest of their lives. The story is told of a girl whose dream was to be an opera singer. Her mother, however, would have none of it and so she pursued the career that her mother chose for her. Many years later, when this woman developed dementia and was living in a nursing home, one of the nurses related that one day, she stood up and sang the most beautiful aria. Her dream of becoming an opera singer, had never been realised and she died with her song within her.

There is another story of a young girl whose mother blocked her attempt to take up a scholarship and when visited by her church family, the young girl, who had recently given her life to Christ, was remarkably calm. It is reported that she told her visitors that she would get what God intended for her to get. They were shocked at her calmness in the midst of what they thought would have been her bitterest disappointment.

While the path to where we want to get to might be fraught with many obstacles and years of delay, one thing holds true. If you put your hand in God’s hand, no matter how terrified or unsure of the outcome you might be, God is not going to let you down. He wants the best for His children, and while the path may be unclear to us, He has a plan for our future and there are lessons that He intends for us to learn on the way to fulfillment.

What ever was decided for you, denied you or missed you, know that God knew about it before you were even born. He has a beautiful plan for your life and a purpose that only you are qualified to carry out. It doesn’t matter that there are billions of people in the universe. God actually has a plan for each and everyone of us. Learn to trust Him, by listening to his Word, reading it and reading books by believers who have been where you now are. For truly, in Christ, all things are possible and no good thing will He withhold from those that love Him.