Resting in Your Plan for Me

 

 

Lord God, Worker of all that is good,

It is easy for me to boldly believe Your good and sovereign control over all

as I look at the lives of others from afar.

In my friend’s life,

when she is struggling, suffering,

wondering what You are doing in her world,

I can so easily say in my heart, if not with my mouth,

God knows what He’s doing.

He will bring good from this.

 

I mean well.

And it is true.

You alone work all things together for good.

 

Ah, but when it’s my life suddenly interrupted by a medical issue or crisis;

when You bring or allow calamity that affects my world, my people;

when my hopes and dreams are derailed or dashed;

when my prayers are answered only with silence,

then my faith feels fragile.

I feel unmoored, adrift,

my previous confidence in Your good and sovereign control

leaking rapidly like air from a punctured life raft.

 

Thank You, my Savior,

that you never change,

even though my life lurches and falls

like a roller coaster

and I feel in turmoil from calamity.

 

Still,

You are intimately acquainted with my every need,

my every longing.

You are always working in thousands of ways I cannot see

And will never know.

 

My Father,

the great I AM,

Holy Spirit my Teacher, my Guide, my Helper,

reveal Your Truth

that I may learn what You have planned for me

on this ride of life.

 

Turn my unbelief into belief.

Help me cling to Your truth

in every new today,

and in each dawning tomorrow.

 

Thank You for Your good and wise plans for me.

I choose to trust You,

with what is known and what is unknown

because you are good.

I love you, Jesus.

Amen.

Although the new year is always visually depicted as a sweet innocent baby, our lives as we enter every new year lack that purity. Pastor Tim Keller has said, “we are more wretched than we would ever believe,” meaning our sin and brokenness clings to us and until heaven cannot be thoroughly removed.

But the second half of Keller’s quote says, “and more loved than we can ever imagine.”

Many of us enter January burdened with broken relationships, carrying a life-threatening disease in our bodies, or grieving a great loss. Daily we need to be reminded that God is good. Nothing comes into our lives without His permission.

One day we will see Him face to face and all will be made right!

May the words of this prayer guide you to a place of contented surrender before a good, gracious and more-loving-than-we-can-possibly-imagine Father. May you rest in His embrace today and every day of this year.