God's Plan for Your Life

The day was slowly coming to an end.  After a wonderful Bible study with some sweet Christian girls my age I headed to my car for the drive home (which actually is my Dad's car since I still don't have my own car, hehe).  Each week we've have been meeting to study the book of Jonah and I always leave this study feeling so blessed. My mind was bursting with new truths from God's word as I turned the keys in the ignition and shifted into first gear. Cruising up the highway towards home I tuned into my favorite Christian radio station (K-love), singing my heart out to all of my favorite songs.  My heart truly was full and I couldn't keep myself from smiling.  God has been so good to me by giving me this Bible study.

The song I was singing along to soon ended and then the speaker came on the radio to talk for a little while. Instead of switching stations (which I usually do) I listened intently to what she had to say. She shared something she had read in a book that said; "If we could see all the that God has planned for us it would boggle our minds."

I don't know if it was because I was in the right mood, or because I've been struggling in this area over the last few weeks. But the truth of that statement hit me good and hard.  I couldn't stop saying amen to the wonderful truth of this simple quote.  It's crazy, but I found so much peace when I thought deeper about what that quote means for us.

God has a wonderful plan for me, and for you.  Even though we can't see it, it is a beautiful life He has created for us to live.  If we could see all of it we would be overwhelmed at how amazing God's plan is for us.  All the struggles and pain we go through would make sense to us because we would see the ultimate outcome.

Just knowing that God has a great plan for me.  A life full of so many blessings I can't even count them all!   A life that is so amazing I can't even imagine it!  That is all I need to keep my focus on God and to keep trusting Him everyday.

Even though I may have to walk through some storms,  including the storms I am facing right now,  I can rest assured that God is using it all for His good.  Every single detail of my life plays an important role in God's beautiful plan for my life.  If I could really see everything that God has planned for me I know that it truly would boggle my mind. 

God really is good to us.  Oh so good!  And He only wants the best for you and me.  I'm going to trust Him with my life, will you?

How To Love God

How do you show someone love? Isn't love just something that comes naturally? You don't have to put any thought into it, it's all about how you feel, right?

Yes, I guess love can be feeling, but it's so much more than just a feeling. When you love someone how do you show them that you love them?

By serving them. By learning all you can about them so you know what pleases them. Spending time with that person and communicating well with them.

So love is actually an action and the feeling comes with the action. With this in mind how can we love God? We can try to chase after the feeling of being loved by God but when days come when we don't feel the love we will be confused and find ourselves left alone and discontent with our life.

As we purpose each day to meditate on God's word we are showing God love. When we spend time studying God's word we are spending time with God and we can learn about how we can please Him. The beautiful thing is that as we do this, God will fill us with the love and joy we long for. But we must follow through with the actions and trust in God and He will supply the feeling.

To love God is to love His word. 

It's truly a beautiful thing when we can learn to love God in this way. I want to be like the psalmist in psalm 119:97 when he cried out saying "Oh how I love your law, it is my meditation day and night."

A Beautiful Hymn

"Come thou fount of every blessing, 

Tune my heart to sing thy Grace..."

Such beautiful words found in such a beautiful hymn. Tune my heart to sing thy grace. But a few days ago as my family was singing this hymn I asked myself, what does that mean, to have our hearts tuned?

I remember years ago when we had a piano tuner come to our house to tune our piano. He had to open up our piano and pull all of the strings until the piano sounded like it was supposed to. It took a few hours but once he was finished our piano sounded better than before. The music was pleasing to the ear because all the notes were tuned perfectly.

Just like the piano, our hearts need to be tuned. And who tunes our heart? God is the great heart tuner. Sometimes it's a long process, and sometimes the pulling of our heart strings may cause pain. But we cannot make music pleasing to God on our own accord. Our life song is just noise until we allow God to come inside and change us. 

Once we allow God to enter in and give him the okay to have his way in our life then He will get to work on tuning our hearts. In His perfect timing He makes our lives into a beautiful arrangement of his Grace.

Lord Jesus, make my life into a song that is pleasing to you. Lord, I want to live a life that brings glory and honor to your name.