When Plans Change
How to Make the Right Decisions in Unexpected Moments
It’s a Friday Morning…
And I’m sitting on the couch in an unfamiliar place I have -somewhat- made mine. I’m in a room with walls that are bare, a corner stacked high with cardboard boxes, and a sectional couch I did not own a month ago. I glance around at a space I do not know with items I am not familiar with, yet everything has been perfectly placed, by yours truly.
It was going to be white.
The house I pictured was white with a wooden door and white window frames. It was a four-bedroom house with a half-acre view to watch the sunrise on. Cows lay around in a back yard that was just a touch away from my parents’ house.
We purchased the designs to this dream house a year ago. We made our to-do list, we got our material quotes, and my dad even sold a few cows on the property to make room for our new house. We built a fence we were so sure of it. Our 23-year-old dreams were determined to make it happen. We saved up, took all the right steps, and we had faith we could really make it happen.
The closer we got to breaking ground, the closer we got to confusion. Disappointed and defeated, we set up a meeting with a realtor. But “I have a feeling buying a home just isn’t for us,” I determined strongly.
“Never say never,” they say back.
So here I am, sitting inside a beige home with a white picket fence in my back yard on the corner of a cul-de-sac. The dream of watching the sunrise through a wide-open view is blocked by several houses, running through fields is replaced with concrete, and rather than walking a half-acre to my parents’ home, I can reach over and touch my neighbor’s yard without moving five steps. As far as animals go, there are no cows in an HOA community you pay fees to, only dogs that bark and lawn mowers that turn on very early in the morning.
This is so not what I pictured. Yet, it’s everything I didn’t know I wanted.
I think sometimes God asks us to take a step even when we don’t know the exact step we are taking.
God desires for us to lean into Him. Like I said, determination and the right amount of stubbornness help me go hard and fast in the wrong direction. God knows I don’t need any more faith in my own plans.
As a part of God’s creation, He gave humans specific direction to honor and serve Him, yet He also gave us the ability to choose the reality of our choices.
Although it’s as simple as serving Him daily, I make “knowing my purpose” difficult because I am terrified of making the wrong decision.
The question I find myself constantly coming back to is:
How do I know if I am doing the right thing?
I think things like: What if God wanted us to build a home, and we quit too early? What if this house is a huge financial mistake? What if my desires are wrong? My mind is filled with lots of those what-ifs. Constantly. And the small decisions paralyze me most days from making big decisions that are actually meaningful. Like writing more. I know I need to share what God is teaching me more. But what if…
These what-if’s grab at my attention, and they scream louder than the voice of the Holy Spirit most days.
What is your “what-if” that keeps you from taking the next right step?
1.We have to remember that when we live walking with the Lord, He will direct our ways. His ways are the right ways, and when we follow Him, we can stop the what-ifs before we get to the point of decision-paralysis.
In Jeremiah 29 verse 5 God gives the people direction concerning the details of their lives. “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce.” God cares about the details and each decision we make should be honoring to him and fulfilling His commands.
2. Prayer is the most important conversation we can have as we try to take the right step.
“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare,” verse 7. There were consequences for the people doing the wrong thing. But seeking God through a daily walk and asking for His will to be done in our prayer with Him will lead us to make the right decisions, and He guides us in love and truth as we desperately try to find our way to Him.
3.Once we surrender our hearts and seek him in prayer, we only need to act in faith, believing that God will lead where He needs.
God cares about the details of the people in the sense that He told them to build houses and plant gardens and marry. But then in verses 10-11 He points to more important, big-picture things that God wants us to grasp. “…and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Ultimately, it comes down to why you serve Him. If it is for things on this earth, it will never satisfy. The house will always have something wrong with it, you will never have time in the day to do what you want, and things will never go the way you want them. Nothing on this earth will ever be enough.
As you seek the “right” thing to do, remember that seeking the Lord will lead to far more abundance as He guides your heart and your desires.
So, here I sit on the couch of this little new home I did not plan nor expect to own. Sometimes His plans are not our plans, but when we walk with Him, His desires will become our desires. And we will be blessed for it.
One Comment
Ma
This is so good. I love the way you think