Growing in Life Transitions, Part Three

When we understand that God is in control, then

We should next remember God has a plan.

God’s plans are plans to empower us. Read verses 7, 8

A. God’s plan provides us with challenge.

To grow through transitions, God shows us what we are capable of handling, but He does so first be teaching us His Word. Life must be frightening for those who are facing changes in their life and they don’t have God’s Word to outline His plan for them.

God said it plainly to Joshua, follow my instructions and you will prosper. Otherwise, well,...I would not dwell on the otherwise. The problem with plans is that sometimes plans take time to unfold, and many people do not like waiting on God’s timing. What they fail to see is how God is teaching them and growing them to handle life’s great adventure, as Steven Curtis Chapman calls it.

Read verse 9

B. God’s plan provides us with certainty.

God gives, and He doesn’t give selfishly. He is faithful and supplies all our needs. He was telling this soon to be great leader of the Israelite nation that fear and trembling was only proper in approaching God not in executing God’s plans.

Discouragement was a trick of Satan, and still is. God empowers us with His Spirit to overcome this world and the lies of the deceiver. His plans are certain and He takes delight in how we operate in those plans.

When I was going through advanced training in the military, I got very sick just a couple of weeks from graduation. In fact, I was hospitalized. I spent a week trying to get over some kind of flu. I missed all my tests.

I was discouraged and angry. My plans were not going as I had laid them out. I was venting about not being able to take the make up exam, and as senior drill sergeants do when they have two way intercoms, my senior drill sergeant was listening. I did a few push ups in front of one of my comrades and as I finished the drill sergeant called me over.

“Grace, you think you can pass the PT test.”

"Senior Drill Sergeant, yes, Senior Drill Sergeant!" (That's how you answer if you don't want your life taken from you...)

"Alright, you get your chance. But you belong to me for a very long time if you don't pass!" How motivated would you have been? To put further pressure on me, one of my Drill Sergeant's, Drill Sergeant Frisk, went to bat for me. Frisk was a good man and a good leader, so I wasn't going to let him down.

I passed and left a few days later than the rest of the trainees but I was able to leave training. The senior drill sergeant wasn’t God but he knew I could do what was expected. I passed all my exams with flying colors and my PT test with room to spare.

God knows what we are able to do, and He challenges us to grow through transitions in life. God is our personal cheer leader.

Our sovereign God has plans, and the transitions in our life help us see those plans. God empowers us with the ability to accomplish His plans here on earth. We have to get beyond discouragement and fear and take up the challenge that God is using to grow us. We have to push through the discouragement and face the certainty of His plans, and He works in and through us.

I was reading in the Times Courier about the efforts of the county to raise awareness of the needs of the food pantry which is now serving 608 families (over 1200 adults and over 700 children). The Times Courier was holding food drives along with numerous other entities throughout Gilmer County. Catching the vision of God’s plans can be as simple as participating in such an effort and becoming a champion for it.

All too often we become so overcome with our own transitions that we miss the people God has placed before us who are going through difficult situations. Jesus spoke to this as serving Him when people feed those who are hungry, clothing those who need clothing, housing those who need housing, and visiting those who need visiting.

How good does it feel that God has a plan, and He is challenging you to live up to a greater potential?