The Perfect Plan

The Perfect Plan

(c) Dayna Spear Guenther, March 2011

Mine, yet not really mine—

I hold on, Lord, with open hands;

You alone are in control—

Help me trust in Your perfect plan.

Tiny hands and sweetest voice—

How can I simply let go?

Beautiful smile and tinkling laugh—

God, You see, and so well You know.

In my Bible I read, “For this child I prayed,”

Yet I do not know for how long;

You, Lord, alone hold my heart in Your hands,

I will trust, and through You, be strong.

I pour my very self into this child,

She may go, next month or next year;

I’m “the called”—I’m the one to stand in the gap,

I will rest in Your arms, not fear.

Mine, yet not really mine—

I hold on, Lord, with open hands;

You alone are in control—

Help me trust in Your perfect plan.

It's Not Fair!

Why me? 


I don't deserve this.


I deserve better.


What did I do to deserve this?

Continual questions flow through my mind. I feel I try so hard to "be good" and "do right." And things continue to go "wrong."

It's not fair! 

There's another expression of emotion that comes easily when I don't truly believe God for Who He is.

God is good. I have been taught that. I know that in my head. But do I truly believe it in my heart?

Recently, I had an epiphany of sorts over a familiar verse. I learned to quote this verse as a two-year-old child:

And we know that all things work together for good, to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. ~ Romans 8:28

Yeah. I've read and quoted that verse so many times. But now I notice that it says, "the called according to His purpose."

I am the called one. The position in which God has placed me in life is for His purpose and ultimately for my good.

God has not maliciously placed me in this position. He has good reasons that I may not know now, but I will know one day. Jesus said:

What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. ~ John 13:7

So it is up to me to believe God is Who He says He is!

The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth them that trust in Him. ~ Nahum 1:7

Knowing God intimately is the privilege of those who trust in Him. If I know and trust that He is good, He becomes my stronghold in the day of trouble.

Countless Scriptures tell me that God is good. That God orchestrates everything in my life. That nothing happens by accident.

The question is: Will I trust in a good God today?

I will trust when I cannot see,

When I'm faced with adversity;

And believe Your will is always best for me,

I will trust when I cannot see.

~ John W. Peterson

God's a Good Housekeeper!

Today I would like to share a portion of The God of All Comfort by Hannah Whitall Smith:

If I have a friend whom I know to be a good housekeeper, I do not trouble over the fact that at housecleaning time things in her house may seem to be more or less upset, carpets up, and furniture shrouded in coverings, and even perhaps painting and decorating making some rooms uninhabitable. I say to myself, “My friend is a good housekeeper, and although things look so uncomfortable now, all this upset is only because she means in the end to make it far more comfortable than ever it was before.”

 

This world is God’s housekeeping; and although things at present look grievously upset, yet, since we know that He is good, and therefore must be a good Housekeeper, we may be perfectly sure that all this present upset is only to bring about in the end a far better state of things than could have been without it. I dare say we have all felt at times as though we could have done God’s housekeeping better than He does it Himself, but, when we realize that God is good, we can feel this no longer. And it comforts me enormously, when the world seems to me to be going all wrong, just to say to myself, “It is not my housekeeping, but it is the Lord’s; and the Lord is good, therefore His housekeeping must be good too; and it is foolish for me to trouble.”

 

A deeply taught Christian was asked by a despairing child of God, “Does not the world look to you like a wreck?

 

“Yes,” was the reply, in a tone of cheerful confidence; “yes, like the wreck of a bursting seed.” Any of us who have watched the first sproutings of an oak tree from the heart of a decaying acorn will understand what this means. Before the acorn can bring forth the oak, it must become itself a wreck. No plant ever came from any but a wrecked seed.

 

Our Lord uses this fact to teach us the meaning of His processes with us. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but, if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

 

The whole explanation of the apparent wreckage of the world at large, or of our own personal lives in particular, is here set forth. And, looked at in this light, we can understand how it is that the Lord can be good, and yet can permit the existence of sorrow and wrong in the world He has created, and in the lives of the human beings He loves.

 

It is His very goodness that compels Him to permit it. For He knows that, only through such apparent wreckage, can the fruition of His glorious purposes for us be brought to pass. And we whose hearts also long for that fruition will, if we understand His ways, be able to praise Him for all His goodness, even when things seem hardest and most mysterious.

 

The apostle tells us that the will of God is “good and acceptable, and perfect.” The will of a good God cannot help being “good”—in fact, it must be perfect’; and, when we come to know this, we always find it “acceptable”; that is we come to love it. I am convinced that all trouble about submitting to the will of God would disappear, if once we could see clearly that His will is good. We struggle and struggle in vain to submit to a will that we do not believe to be good, but when we see that it is really good, we submit to it with delight. We want it to be accomplished. Our hearts spring out to meet it.

 

Space fails me to tell all that I might of the infinite goodness of the Lord. Each one must “taste and see” for himself. And if he will but do it honestly and faithfully, the words of the psalmist will become true of him: “They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness.”

 

God is our PERFECT FATHER, and He can be trusted!

Psalm 116:7 says, "Return unto thy rest, O my soul [that's my mind, will, and emotions!]; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee."

Watch this video of the song "I Can Trust Jesus" by the Collingsworth Family:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcLBdlfkGJs