Nothing Is Going the Way I Planned

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I am a big believer in the saying, “Write what you need to read”. I have carried this mantra into every aspect of my blog. Every post is something that I’ve needed to hear at one point or another. Today is no different. I don’t know about y’all, but I am an intense planner and this has sometimes clashed with my faith. A huge part of Christianity is believing that God has your best interest at heart in good times and bad. During this pandemic, everything has been halted and canceled. I had so many plans for the summer—concerts, internship opportunities, and old friends I wanted to catch up with—and none of that will be happening. I had to actually look in the mirror and say to myself, “None of that will be happening.” I had to accept and come to terms with this reality before I could move forward. I had to say, “Jesus, nothing is going the way I planned.” There is power in saying this aloud. We are allowed to be frustrated. It’s actually a common occurrence in the Bible. Look:

  1. In Exodus 2, the Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians and they were growing concerned that they would never gain freedom. The ASV translation says, ”the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage”. The NIV translation says, “the Israelites groaned”.

  2. In Genesis 18, Sarah had been waiting to get pregnant for many years. The Bible says that she was way past childbearing years and she had given up hope completely. When Sarah heard that God was going to give her a child she “laughed to herself as she thought, ‘After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”

  3. In Matthew 14, Jesus is walking on the water and Peter goes out to meet him. The Bible says, “But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” As soon as Peter began to focus on his environment he began to sink. The Message translation says that Peter “lost his nerve” when he “looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet”.

I have sighed, groaned, laughed cynically, and cried out for God throughout this pandemic. These are all acceptable, normal feelings, but they indicate one thing—DOUBT. Doubt is an antonym of faith. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction”. My future does feel uncertain, but the second half of that definition really struck me. A lack of conviction. Wow. Once I decided that things weren’t going my way, I lost all conviction. I slept in, I stopped exercising, and I just overall stopped caring. This is also known as a tantrum (lol). It’s easy to get stuck in the uncertainty but watch this.

Watch what happened in all three of the previous cases I mentioned:

  1. Exodus 2 says, “God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant….God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” And I don’t know if y’all remember the rest of the story, but God already had a plan in motion—one that they had no idea about. Through Moses, God freed the Israelites and brought them to a new land.

  2. In Genesis 18—I love the way God reacts—God is confused why Sarah is laughing and says, “Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.” (I don’t know why, but I just imagine God in like a long fur coat walking out like “y’all gon see”. Lol!!) And of course, He more than delivered. Sarah had a baby and his birth led to the creation of God’s people.

  3. In Matthew 14, (Wowzers!) the Bible says “Immediately, Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt me?’” Did y’all catch the “immediately” part, like wow! And wait it also says, “when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.” How wild is that? Our circumstances can be changed on the dime.

I say all of this to show you and myself that sometimes we feel like Peter. We’ve followed Jesus out onto the rocky waters, but now we’re screaming for him to get us. We were waiting on a long-held dream, like Sarah and now we’re laughing at the thought of it ever coming true. Or maybe, we feel trapped like the Israelites and it seems like God is never going to come through. We all feel this way at some point in our lives. Or maybe, you’re like me and you feel that way at least once a year! Whatever the case may be, we cannot allow our circumstances to affect our conviction. Read that again for me. This is difficult, but definitely not impossible, especially when you know your God is in the business of keeping promises. He is!

In just a year from now, I will be embarking on a new season of life. I will have to make life-changing decisions and that can feel scary in the midst of coronavirus when everything is up in the air. But I cannot allow my circumstances to affect my conviction. It is my conviction that God is real and that he created me for a purpose. That knowledge alone should be enough to get me out of my bed and on the move because once you know that to be true, how can you ever sit still? After you get over the fact that nothing is going your way, turn to God and thank Him that it is still going His way.

I’ll be praying for you. Please pray for me.