God Has a Plan for My Life

"Has God a plan for my life?" Is that not a silly question to ask? God - what do you really know about Him? Would He want to have anything to do with my life, or with the lives of all people? Isn't life a matter of complete arbitrariness, a series of coincidences that you cannot line up in any way? I mention one example: There is a young couple. Formerly they never came to church. Then they discovered God and really accepted the faith. They have two boys, one five and one seven years of age. On a certain day, I should say a black day, a car comes and kills the elder lad in front of the home of his parents. God?? Alas, fate!

This kind of thing happens every day. One says, "Why should I lose my wife?" Another, "Why should I lose my husband?" - or my child?" "Why did I fail that exam?" WHY DID my business break up?" "Why did my marriage go on the rocks?" Why? WHY? Sometimes it is said that life is like a carpet. WHEN you look underneath, you see a tangle of threads and you don't understand a bit of it. There is no design. But when you look at the upper side you see the beautiful pattern. Yes, that may be true, but to whom is given the privilege of looking at the upper side of life?

Perhaps if you really believe in God, you understand more of it. Read the last book of the Bible, the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John, the fifth chapter. Although it is somewhat difficult to understand, you will see that it speaks of an open heaven and there is a book like a scroll, closed with seven seals. In that scroll is God's plan for the world, and for the life of each one of us.

But that scroll is closed with seven seals and the question is, who is worthy to take the scroll and to open the seals, and to look into GOD's plan. It seems that nobody can do it. Then there comes a great tension. Is there no one even in heaven, who is worthy? But look! Yes, there is one who is worthy to take that scroll and to open the seven seals. That One is the Lamb, the Lamb that also is the Lion. But who is He? He is Jesus Christ, who was slaughtered as the Lamb of Calvary. You know that was really the worst day in all the history of the world, when men nailed Him to the cross. But yet it was not a bad day at all - it was Good Friday!

How was this possible? He Himself suffered, crying out, "Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" But do you know what He added, in the midst of that need and the darkness of the cross and the terrible suffering? He added, "My God." He held on to God. He knew God as His Father. He was still the Son of God, while He hung in the darkness of Calvary.

Only in Christ Jesus can you come to know God, for in Him God has revealed Himself to men. Only in Him does God untangle the knots of history, and also of our lives. And do you know what is so marvelous? It is that right in the failures of my life, places where the road took another bend than I so much desired, where the cross is engraved.- By those experiences I came to know God better. Whenever I die to my own self, with the Lord Jesus Christ, I experience the power of His resurrection. And I experience that God lives indeed, and that He also has a plan for my life. So this is the marvelous thing: - that even the most unpleasant things work together for good, for those who love God. That is a word from the Bible. If you have a Bible near at hand, take it and look up the New Testament, the epistle of Paul to the Romans, the eighth chapter, the 28th verse. And let it quietly enter your mind for a while, and also what is written in the next verse. Read it with a prayerful open heart, (and discover the plan He has for your life.) ****************** Note: If used alone, include the phrase in parenthesis. If the following portion is to be included, leave it out.)

Does God really have a plan for _my_ life also? If you read what is written in Romans 8, the twenty-ninth verse, you found a marvelous thought. Among other things, it says, "He predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son." God has a destination, a purpose for our life. It is not all vain, it doesn't just happen. He created man according to a fixed plan. He created man according to His image and similitude. "Yes," you say, "but man, as representing the image of God...that does not fit at all. Didn't we lose that image completely?" Yes, indeed, if you look at man as he is - there is little of God in him. You have seen in many ways what man is capable of doing, and what he can degenerate into. How men can dishonor and misuse each other.

Perhaps you are not like the modern man in the story who takes nothing and nobody into consideration, who lets himself go intemperately, a cruel and sadistic man. And it is appalling that he can be the hero of many people. They conduct their lives in the same way, and say, "Go ahead and get what you want. Be a strong man and take nothing and nobody into consideration." In this way we become demon-like, devilish people. But if you are in a covered or pious way, a refined egotist, you are still not bearing the image of Christ. Try only for a moment to be honest before God. If you ask the question, "Are we bearers of the image of God?" You must say, "It looks very little like it, in me." Did you read well, that God has predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son? Who is He? That Son of God, Jesus Christ, is at the same time the Son of Man. He is the real man, living for God and for His neighbor. He has brought to this world the real Love, and Love of God, that does not seek to satisfy self. If we are conformed to His image we will resemble Him.

Yes, we resemble the one with whom we associate much. We used to say, "He who handles pitch is made dirty by it." "One rotten apple in the basket spoils all the sound fruit." And, "Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you what you are like." This principle also holds true in the spiritual realm. When you really associate with Jesus Christ you gradually will resemble Him, and you will become a bearer of the image of God. Then God reaches His goal, for God created us in His image, and we will have become what He meant us to be. Then God can make something beautiful of us. When we receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our own personal Saviour, His Holy Spirit comes to live within us, and He helps us to become more and more like Jesus. He starts to fill our lives with His love, and helps us to understand God's Word. To associate with Jesus Christ, you can find Him in the Bible. Read the Gospels, the first part of the New Testament. There you will see the stature of Him rising up clearly. Read it prayerfully and listen to what God tells you in the Bible. Then God will work by His Holy Spirit in your life, to re-form you into a bearer of His image. For He really has a plan for you, and it is important that you and I respond to it.