By Design

It’s not an accident you’re here. It’s not a coincidence that every step you’ve taken seems to be orchestrated.

Ever felt like you were set up. As though God was just looking at you saying ‘I told you so!’.

And the more and more you think about all of those failures and frustrations that you thought had messed everything up, you realise that they were completely By Design.

Those friendships that you lost actually had nothing to do with the people but completely to do with God’s purpose for you.

That uni course you got into had nothing to do with your grades but all to do with the gifting God had placed inside of you.

It’s incredible how quickly we come up with formulas. That if this happened this way before, it will happen this way again.

That based on our intellect, our plan can be completely mapped out.

Yet, it’s like telling a creator how his creation works.

‘Many plans are in a man’s mind, but it is the Lord’s purpose for him that will stand.’
Proverbs 19:21

I know I have done this countless times and I don’t know how God is so gracious to me.

Without fail somehow I am always surprised and only then begin to see how God had unfolded his perfect plan before my blinded eyes.

‘How did I miss this?’ ‘How did I not see this coming?’. Yet during the process how often do we critique the way we’ve been designed and forget how intentional and purposeful God is.

What God has been showing me is how limited our knowledge is. That our logic and reasoning will never be a match for God’s infinite wisdom.

‘Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.’
1 Corinthians 13:12

As he created us and knows us so intimately, he knows exactly how to prepare us for what he has for us.

So why are we surprised when things don’t happen how we expected but somehow they turned out so much better?!

It wasn’t an accident, I promise. It was completely on purpose. And you know what the timing was completely perfect.

And yes, you will probably feel pretty stupid for thinking your plan was better.

So next time when your plan is completely falling apart, remind yourself that God knows things that you don’t.

That he is accounting for factors that you’ve completely missed. That his thoughts entirely surpass ours and that he always has what’s best for us.

‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.’
Isaiah 55:8-9