I have learned, by trial and error, that God has an agenda for our lives that is often very different from what we think, what we desire, and what we plan.  Let me explain…

About forty years ago, a friend and I went to the United States to attend a Christian women’s conference in New Orleans. Our trip extended for one week beyond the conference week…and we had grandiose visions of God using us to minister to people in America after the conference.  

During the meetings, we met a lady who invited us to her home in Los Angeles for a few days,  so…after the conference, we duly took a bus ride to California to meet up with her there. Plan A, so we thought, was beginning to take shape!

Despite our expectations, plan A didn’t happen but…God’s plan began to unfold. We did not have opportunities to minister to anyone. Instead, God arranged the things that happened to minister to us. Many times, when we didn’t know where to go or what to do, He intervened, set our feet on a path and gently led us along His way. 

We came home from the USA with one deep lesson imprinted on our hearts and…not easily forgotten…and the lesson? God is a faithful Father! We were two women alone in a great big country…a big city…with very little money…and a week to burn before our flight home and…He took care of us. We looked back on those days…not making a name for ourselves but…the memory of a loving Father who taught us to trust Him in a strange country. How naive we were!

This experience has lingered… and a lesson I have had to learn many times…that God is far more concerned about what He can do for me, and in me, than what I can do for Him. Yes, He graciously works through us to bless others…often when we are, thankfully, unaware of what He is doing but…more often, He works in us to move us ever closer to His goal…to transform us into the image of His Son. 

Our problem is that we are inclined to take the credit when we think that God is working through us. God will never put up to with this so…He masks His work through us by working something deeper in us. 

Paul has to learn this lesson in a painful way. 

“I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth…But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭12‬:‭2‬, ‭6‬-‭7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

 Paul had some out-of-body experiences that tempted him to become proud…to elevate himself above others but…God put paid to that idea by allowing him to go through some rough times…persecution, hardship, suffering of one kind or another…so that he had no opportunity to become proud. He was too busy batting away at his own troubles to set himself up as someone special. 

Paul recognised that this was God working in him but…he didn’t like the suffering so…he asked God to take it away. 

However, God said, “No!” 

The heavenly visions had their place in Paul’s experience but so did the weaknesses he was forced to endure as God’s chosen servant. What he was about to learn was that God used both of these situations to knock off any pride or self-sufficiency that might be surfacing in him. There was no place for pride…that “I am somebody. I can do this by myself” attitude that kills dependence on God. 

Paul learned this lesson well…so well, in fact, that he began to embrace his weaknesses as his best friend. 

“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭12‬:‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

So, what’s the lesson in this for us? 

I have learned that I must not be so quick to think that God needs me to do things for Him that I forget what a frail and failing creature I am. He works, in all things, for my good…to conform me to the image of His Son.  However much He might work through me to bless others, His primary goal and priority is to change me…to expose the darkness that still lurks inside me…the selfish behaviour…the motives that I don’t even recognise…the attitudes that betray the old nature still very much alive in me. 

God has pledged to restore the image of Jesus in His people. He is calling us to holiness. He does not want plastic fruit hung on the outside of our lives for decoration but the real fruit of our union with Jesus that grows, slowly, on the inside. 

It’s the real fruit that displays the nature of the tree. So, let’s keep in mind that anything God does through us for the sake of others is His business. Our business is to work out through faith and obedience, the life of Jesus that is at work in us. 

“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭2‬:‭12‬-‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬