When God changes our plans, how do we react? When we’ve made plans far in advance, say retirement, planning a career or family, or other such long-range plans, what do we do when God closes doors and opens others in a different direction? For me, it is hard. Sometimes, it can be confusing. God has the best plans for our lives. The Bible tells us, “For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11 CSB)
I’ve never been a sit-down and plan my life out for the next five years type of person. I tend to go day by day, what comes…comes, and I leave the rest up to God. That’s not to say I don’t try to prepare for what is ahead. Like most people, I have life insurance for when I go Home to see God so that my family is taken care of. I have also begun to think about my Home-going service and what I want it to include and have yet to go through pre-planning with a funeral home for a casket and such. I feel like this is one thing I can do for my family that they won’t have to deal with when the time comes.
There have been times in the past when I made plans and things changed so drastically that it completely threw me for a loop. When my first husband had his first stroke, he was in the hospital after having brain surgery. That was the first blow, I knew that eventually, my husband would be having some serious health issues because of his family history, but I wasn’t expecting it so soon. I was still working at the Christian TV network I was employed with, and I walked into work one day to find that our procedures had been changed to the point that I felt overwhelmed. Things were changing at home drastically and now they were changing at work so much that I felt completely lost. I remember saying to my boss, “Why can’t just one thing stay the same?” It was more than I could handle. God was taking me and my husband in a different direction and He was taking the network in a different direction, and both were occurring at the same time, and I just wasn’t ready for either.
There will be times in our lives when God takes our plans and changes our direction, our focus, or our interests. Today’s verse tells us that His plans are for our good. He will never plan something for us that will ultimately harm us. He has a better plan than anything we can even imagine. While I was doing my Bible Journaling for this devotion, a song came on called, “Plans” by Rend Collection. The chorus says, “You got plans for me, You got plans for me, Greater than my wildest dreams, stronger than the enemy, You got plans for me, You got plans for me, Even in my worst defеat, will You give me faith to see, You got plans for me, plans for me.” I find it comforting to know that God loves me enough to plan out my life and take me on a journey that will not only be for my good but will also bring Him glory and honor. My job is to agree to His plan.
Is that easy? Not always. Sometimes, like the time in my life, I just described, I fought it a little. Yes, I knew my husband would be suffering and life would be hard, and I knew that, especially in broadcasting, nothing ever stays the same, things are always changing. My issue was, I was being slammed from both sides and not finding the air to breathe. It took me a little while to finally come to grips with what was happening around me.
God knew better than I did. If we would have stayed in Montana instead of moving to Illinois, when my husband got sick, most likely we would have had to take him to Salt Lake City, which would have required a life flight of hours. As it was, one of the best hospitals was only half an hour away by helicopter. It was the best thing for him. The changes to the TV network started something phenomenal for that network. They have grown to be a major network in Christian Television, broadcasting all over the world.
When it seems like God has completely upset our plans, we need to remember that we are His, and He will hold us through the changes. He will put us on the path that will bring us into His will for our lives and be the best for us. He will promote us to the next level to bring us into a greater faith that will produce fruit and give us a hope and a future with Him.
donnasmusings 
I love this! I needed to read this post. I am currently going through some things and it’s so hard sometimes to remember that God is in control and that He knows what is best for my life. I may think I know what is best for me but God is the only One who can see into the future!
I’m glad it was a blessing. Yes, it often is hard to remember that God is in control. We must remember we see just a small portion of the pathway He has us on, but He sees the whole journey.