Over the past year, I've thought a lot about God's Will and what happens to my faith if it differs from my own. One of my close friends has struggled with infertility. I pray for her regularly. I ask God to give her a baby, but if it is not his will, then to provide her with peace and ease her disappointment and focus her to another direction. It's easy to pray that for someone else. It's easy to accept that maybe her plans and God's plans don't match up. But turn the tables to your own life, and it may not be as easy, right?
Last year, I had a cancer scare. I was terrified, praying daily that my biopsy results would come back negative, but asked God that if they didn't, that he would use me in some way for his glory. I felt really awesome about that because I remembered Jesus praying in Gethsemane: “...My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (Matthew 26:39, NLT) My result came back negative, and I guess thankfully, I didn't have to test whether I really meant that prayer.
Here's the thing. I'm not on Jesus' level (duh). I hope that had I not been spared cancer, that my conviction would have remained the same. But then I think about Peter. Peter was told by Jesus himself that he would deny him and he thought there was no way that would happen. But fast forward a little and even one of Jesus' friends didn't react how he thought he would.
I think about the day I got that call telling me everything was clear. So many other people got the opposite information and had to make a decision right then and there whether to trust in God to get them through this, or to believe that He had turned His back on them. I have heard so many stories about praying through the not just the peaks, but also through the valleys that I truly believe that even when the news is bad, even when it's the darkest point in our lives, God is there with a purpose and a direction, even if we can't see it.
Sometimes, our faith will surprise us, or rather, we respond how we hoped we would. Other times, we may feel our faith slipping, we may stumble. But even in our times of doubt, God never turns His back on us. If it takes us days or months, whenever we are able to climb whatever obstacles stand between us and our faith, God remains there for us. That’s just who He is: “Even if we are not faithful, he remains faithful. He must be true to himself.” (2 Timothy 2:13, NIRV)
BRB, bookmarking this blog so that the next time God is sending me in a different direction than I wanted to go, I can be reminded that His time is never wrong, He never makes mistakes. It is my plans that need adjustment, not His--but I don’t have to do it alone. He is with me every step of the way.
Originally posted on the LowCountry Community Church blog on 8/17/21.
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