Ravi Zacharias - There Is a Plan

Content in this book excerpted from
The Grand Weaver by Ravi Zacharias.

God Has Plans For You

Contents

The L ORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O L ORD , endures foreverdo not abandon the works of your hands.

Psalm 138:8

We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

We are Gods workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:10

All of us experience sudden disappointment and unexpected events. And when something terrible happens we often declare, Thats life!as though disappointment and heartache declare the sum total of this existence.

We miss the roses and see only the thorns. We take for granted the warmth of the sun and get depressed by the frequency of the rain or the snow. We ignore the sounds of life in a nursery because we are preoccupied with the sounds of sirens responding to an emergency.

Yet God has a specific purpose for each of us and he will carry us through. However, recognizing that plan is not a simple thing. Our journey cannot be one only of unmistakable blessing and a path of ease. To allow God to be God we must follow him for who he is and what he intends, and not for what we want or what we prefer.

In order to see Gods pattern in your life, you must develop a tender heart.

Jesus said, You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts.

Luke 16:15

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

Hebrews 3: 78

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are.

Hebrews 4:1415

At the end of your life one of three things will happen to your heart: it will grow hard, it will be broken, or it will be tender. Nobody escapes. Your heart will become coarse and desensitized, be crushed under the weight of disappointment, or be made tender by that which makes the heart of God tender as well. Gods heart is a caring heart.

God seeks those with tender hearts so that he can put his imprint on them. Your hurts and your disappointments are part of that design, to shape your heart and the way you feel about reality. The hurts you live through will always shape you. There is no other way.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what Gods will ishis good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Hebrews 2:18

I say to myself, The L ORD is my portion, therefore I will wait for him. The L ORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the L ORD .

Lamentations 3:2426

In order to see Gods pattern in your life, you must have a mind of faith. What the brain is to the body, the mind is to the soul. If you do not believe that God is in control and has formed you for a purpose, then you will flounder on the high seas of purposelessness, drowning in the currents and drifting further into nothingness.

Yet, we dont want to believe God is in control. We think that if only we were in control, everything would be fine. I have a friend who is terrified of flying because, he says, he cannot handle anything that he cannot control. I did not want to offend him by saying, Welcome to life. God has made it imperative in the design of life that we become willing to trust beyond ourselves. Walking by faith means to follow someone else who knows more than we do, someone who is also good.

The love of God shows us that God alone bridges the distance between him and us, enabling us to see this world through Calvary. If you dont see it that way, then you will never see it his wayand the threads of the masterpiece he is weaving of your life will always pull away from the design.

If the L ORD delights in a mans way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the L ORD upholds him with his hand.

Psalm 37:2334

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3: 56

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.

Isaiah 42:16

We all seek success, eager to grab whatever we can along the way. Yet accomplishment and dream careers do not necessarily lead to happiness. Making it to number one really means knowing where God wants you to be and serving him there with your best efforts. The goal is to find the threads God has in place for you and to follow his plan for you with excellence.

God, in his extraordinary way, can bring failure to you or cast you into prison in order to help you find your true calling. A calling is simply Gods shaping of your burden and beck-oning you to your service to him in the place and pursuit of his choosing.

A call may not necessarily feel attractive to you, but it will tug on your soul in an inescapable way, no matter how high the cost of following it may be. Finding that call gives you that hand-in-glove sensation and provides the security of knowing that you are utilizing your gifts and your will to Gods ends first, not yours.

The drive to become number one is often the very thing that ultimately destroys a person. It simply cannot deliver the fulfillment we seek. Story after story bears this out.