The Course of our Lives — Morning Devotions

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Transcript

Two men were riding on a bicycle built for two, and they came to a steep hill. It took quite a, a deal of struggle for these men to complete what proved to be a very steep climb. And when they got to the top, the man in the front said, Man, that was a hard climb.

The guy in the back, yes, it was, and if I hadn’t kept the brakes on all the way, we would have rolled down backwards.

Well, our plans sometimes a bit like that, we don’t work out things that are happening. One person thinks one thing and the other thinks something else. Now that’s why we need God’s help each day.

The living Bible has this remarkable word in Psalm 138:8.

The Lord will work out His plans for my life. Your loving kindness, Lord, continues forever.

Now I think this is a remarkable verse. It was written by David from the Old Testament, and he believed that God had a plan for him, even in the midst of an intense struggle and hardship. I mean God wanted David to be the king of Israel and to govern them as he wanted.

And after David was anointed king, there was severe hardship in his life. He faced Goliath. He won. Saul was jealous. He was after David. He wanted David killed. And so David spent a long time running from this man and his army. And after God had delivered David from Saul, he ruled well as the king, but he failed. He committed a sin with Bathsheba and had her husband Uriah killed in battle, and his son died, and his last 3 years actually as king saw famine, war with Philistines, so here was a man who had many ups and downs, but his life also had blessing, hardship and struggle, yeah, and this is why David said in Psalm 138, The Lord will fulfil His purpose for me.

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Your love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not abandon the works of your hands. Now it doesn’t say there the Lord will work out my plans for my life, or the Lord will work out the plans that I want for my life. No, it’s different to that. It says the Lord will work out His plans for my life.

Now I think if we take that verse seriously and if we’re going to apply it to ourselves, it means something else. I don’t have to bear the burden of making every good thing happen in my life, and that’s hard enough to do. Why? Because God will work out His plans for me.

Now this doesn’t mean that we are to live without ambition or without any sense of direction in life, taking responsibility. Yes, we have to do that. It certainly doesn’t mean that we’ve got to wander aimlessly day by day waiting for God to suddenly appear and to blaze a trail for us so that we can just follow Him.

What it does mean is that as we strive to live according to God’s will, we’ve got this assurance that He is there working on our behalf behind the scenes, pulling strings, making things happen not according to what we want, but according to his plan.

If you’ve read the novel, The Brethren, the John Grisham novel, the main character is a politician named Aaron Lake, and he’s chosen by some very powerful people in Washington to run as president. And while he’s out there campaigning, there are these powerful people working behind the scenes, and they were orchestrating events to get him elected because with his election, their purposes were served. And I think there’s a bit of a comparison there.

It means that you’re not alone in chartering the course of your life. Someone much more powerful than you, and that is God Himself, has a plan for your life. He plans for you. I mean, yes, and these plans can be described as good. I mean, the Bible says so in Jeremiah 29:11, we have this remarkable verse, for I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster. They are plans to give you a future and a hope.

So God has a great plan. He’s committed to making that plan become a reality. But for that to happen, you have to do your part. You’ve got to be yielded to God through His Son Jesus Christ so that he can continue to direct your life.

Let’s Pray

Thank you, Lord. These are realities that we need. Give us your courage and strength to follow you day by day. Amen.

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