YOU FIT INTO GOD'S PLAN

PRAYER JOURNAL 9/17/2018

Romans 12:6-8 Having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them; if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

Have you ever wanted to be just like another person? Wished you were prettier, thinner, had their fashion sense, shared their knack for making money, for teaching, preaching…I have.  If you have been to as many churches services as I have, you have heard a minister or two preach and immediately you could discern who they admired, who they were trying to follow, who they were trying to emulate…and it just didn’t work!  You wanted to hear their heart; what God was speaking through them, not who they wish they could be.

As a young minister’s wife, I watched all Pastor’s wives; how they dressed, how they acted, how they sang, how they played the piano, how they treated the congregation, their husbands, me and of course, how they were “adored.” I wanted to be like them and live up the ideal I had set in my mind.  It was truly one of the most frustrating times of my life.

Finally, I realized that God had called SUSAN for a special purpose and it was alright.  The personality traits I did not like and wanted to trade for someone’s that I admired, God would use. The “gifts” I desired became a source of defeat and disappointment as I tried to fit myself into the mold I had created rather than the plan God had reserved just for me.

Finding my “Place” in God, using the gifts He has placed in me from conception, ministering in areas that are a natural outflow of the Holy Spirit, has given me such amazing joy and fulfillment. Why does wisdom have to take so long?

Over the years I have learned that life is NOT a competition or a zero-sum game.  God has an individualized plan for each person.  The happiest people are those who follow His plan for them instead of trying to put on that of another.