God’s plan for our lives was once explained to me like this….God has put together this gigantic symphony for each of our lives, complete with every instrument known to man and thousands of musicians, the sheet music for this symphony He created for our lives is HUNDREDS of pages long….yet all we get to see of this masterpiece is a few music notes scribbled on a cocktail napkin. Even if we wanted to see the whole masterpiece, hundreds of pages long, we could never wrap our minds around the complexity of it all. The reason God only writes a few notes on a cocktail napkin, to help us try to understand His plan, is because a few notes is all our human minds can handle. Of course with those few notes we generally think we know what’s best for our lives….that God couldn’t possibly have EVERYTHING planned out, so He obviously needs our input from time to time. He needs our profound decision making abilities to shine through when He’s busy saving some other part of the world. But….He does have it all planned out, He knows every hair on our head, and He also knows what’s truly in our hearts.
The problem is that God also gave us free will. It is my tendency (and maybe yours) to put my life on autopilot sometimes, kick back, put on some headphones and expect that God will course correct my poor decisions. If that happens then my life is still in line with His plan. The symphony He wrote for me, and I expect Him to orchestrate, still goes on. The problem is, it is MY decision to follow God’s plan for me, He can’t make that decision for me. It is up to me to invite God into my heart, and pray that His will be done in my life, so His beautiful symphony can play on, and that He may delight in His work. We have to make a conscious decision to follow God’s plan for our lives, it’s not something that just happens automatically. I have learned a valuable lesson over the past few weeks about the importance of involving God in my decisions, and I’m not talking about decisions like which parking spot I should take, I’m talking about career changes, relationship issues and decisions that have the potential to change the landscape of your life. It’s amazing to me to look back on my life and realize how many decisions I’ve made that I never involved the Lord in. Recently I’ve come to a crossroads in my career and I believe that God has led me here. The problem is that I don’t know where to go now, and there are a few different roads I could potentially take. But instead of stressing out and losing sleep, I’ve lifted it up to the Lord, and I take comfort in the fact that He will, when the time is right, let me know which direction I need to move in. If you have any major or minor decisions coming across your radar, I encourage you to seek God’s council, He will not lead you astray….remember, He’s composing a symphony that is just starting to get good!!! And if you feel like you’ve asked and been given no answer, try to be patient, when God wants you to move He’ll let you know.
This is genius. I appreciate this analogy especially because it makes the truth of GOD play out with people!
Fantastic! This entry rings so true to me, but I’ve never had the problem of being too lax and just hoping that God would take the reins from me. I’ve always been the opposite. I wanna drive and have God be my passenger seat driver. Just holla at him whenever I feel like I made a wrong turn.
Either way…you’re right. There is a definite happy middle ground and I’m finding that the more I invite God into my life and my decision making the more He is willing to handle for me. Good stuff Scott. Everything will come together according to His will.
God has shown me that we are, were, and will be, an on going work in HIM of progress. Yes, Scott, in a similar way to your symphony, I have followed the Lord believing that we are all uniquely created. We are all different, yet we will one day all fit together. This area of theology or church doctrine is often shunned in many churches, they rather preach from the pulpit condemnation. The leadership wants cookie cutter Christians, it is easier that way…I guess. LOL. It has been my life experience that God will start slow, giving me a one lb weight, and gradually he increases it. I believe he will do this till the day I go home with him. I believe that we all have God given free will, thus when we look to him and say I blew it, Man or flesh or both gets some kinda satisfaction out of reminding us what we did, or it may even be our own heads….. . But God is faithful and true, Waiting, and if and when we see we are on the wrong path, he is there waiting, and gently guides us back on track if we are willing. He also will use the life lessons we learned down the road to minister to someone else. The enemy knows exactly when to hit, when we are down, when we are vulnerable, that’s when its so easy to slip into rationalization and justification and to continue down on the slippery slope. On the other hand, God is always the same, always loving, forgiving, and full of grace and forgiveness. How awesome he is.If only people could be like that. Throw away their tally sheets. Only God thinks like God, and knows his plan in our lives. Anytime a person is telling what God says, that heed, my experience has not been good with that. I often will ask them when God appointed them as his second hand man. (OF COURSE I AM NOT SPEAKING OF GODLY WISDOM & COUNSEL) And i AGREE WITH YOU, WHEN WE DO NOT GET A YES OR NO, gOD IS SAYING WAIT, BE PATIENT, TRUST ME. This is EXACTLY WHY i FIND SYMBOLIC TO BE SO HEALTHY AND BALANCED… Symbolic so awesome, people CAN BE THEMSELF, REAL, HONEST, TRUE, SYMBOLIC GETS IT…It’s not how holy one puts on outwardly, it’s love, care, concern, meeting needs, building relationships. Theses are the things in this world that shows we are marching to a different tune. They shall know us by our love. Reading about Gods attributes really helped me to discern between what was and was not his nature. I hope my ramblings made some kind of sense to someone. In Him~~~Cindy
I couldnt agree with you more with you guys. It’s amazing to me how it all fits together, we may not understand everything, but we know when God is working in our lives. And as Cindy mentioned, He will always use our life experiences to minister to others, which connects all of us in this unique spirituality. I am so thankful for Symbolic, because it’s HONEST, and allows me to be me, nothing else, only the man that God created me to be.