Inspiration

GOD HAS A PLAN

By Connie Arnold

I watched the woman with the young girl, and I was close enough to hear the conversation. (Okay, so I was eavesdropping.)

“I want to pay for it, Grandma,” the child was clutching tightly to the $1 bill and some change in her hand.  With full assurance that she held in her hand enough to pay for the clothes she’d chosen, she laid her money on the counter in front of the clerk.

How often do we tell God, “okay, I’ve got this?”

No, I don’t suppose that we tell Him this to His face, but we sometimes live like it.  As long as the bumps in our road don’t keep us from going on, we may not feel the need of divine help.  

We think that the seat belts and airbags that we’ve installed in our life to protect us in a crash should be enough. We have auto repair and replacement insurance, medical insurance, and 401k accounts for future financial needs, never thinking that an auto accident could be fatal, our disease may not be curable, and the stocks in our portfolio may no longer be adequate.

We’ve laid our crisp $1 bills and shiny change in front of God, and said, “we’ve got this.”  And sometimes He will leave us to enjoy what we can purchase.

But He has a better plan:  “Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you” (Matthew 7:7). It doesn’t say ‘knock and open the door’. It says knock and the door will be opened for you. What a difference. We don’t have to work so hard.

The grandmother, without the child’s knowledge, paid for what the girl’s meager funds couldn’t cover.

“As bad as you are, you still know how to give good gifts to your children” (Matthew 7:11a).  We are often aware of God’s protection after we’ve been spared; but many times we may never know.

Matthew 7:11b continues “But your heavenly Father is even more ready to give good things to people who ask.”

One time, in an emergency on the highway, our family needed divine help, and needed it NOW.  All I had time for was a fervent, “Lord, help!”  And the answer was already there.

“And . . . before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24).  The Lord is always watching and listening.

It might be to our advantage to remember that God works on a higher plane than we do.  His seat is high enough to see our road from start to finish.  He wants to program our GPS all the way Home.