God Controls Your Future, Not Men & Women.

I’ve been reminded lately that my future is in the hands of my Creator and no one else. Sounds simple enough, right? Trust is always a recurring topic as a follower of Jesus. Trust God. He has a plan for you. Just keep trusting Him. We hear these things all the time and they can lose their luster just as anything else can. But here is what I love about trust: it has layers. Just like love. I love God more than I did a year ago. I value you my relationship with God more than I did a year ago. I find more contentment in God than I did last week. There are layers.

God desires for us to go deeper. He desires for us to embrace all that HE has to offer us. Matthew 7:11-14 talks about how much God desires for His children to ask and receive more of His Spirit. He wants us to continue growing in our relationship with Him. He desires for us to trust Him more. God knows that there are layers to almost everything. He also knows that it can be tough as a human to trust that He controls your future and not those around you. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Faith is taking the first step, even when you can’t see the whole staircase.” Relate that to a relationship with Jesus. The first step is putting our faith and trust in Him. Knowing that He is the only way that we can be saved from ourselves. The next step night be trusting Him to provide a new lifestyle for you. Dying to yourself daily and committing to trust that He can provide new friends, hobbies, interest, and disciplines. Maybe the next step is trusting that He is sufficient in all of your circumstances. Not just your hobbies and interests, but your fear of sharing the gospel to the lost. Or your family member that has a deadly disease. Or the job that you just lost. God is sufficient.

I am currently doing a year-long Student Ministry Residency with Grace Point Church in San Antonio. If you know me, you know how much I love students. The campus pastor that has recruited us here is leaving at the end of the summer, so I have instantly faced a pressure to figure out what the next year holds for Madalyn and me.

Wrong.

God isn’t figuring it out, He already has it figured out. 

Satan tries to tell me to show my bosses that I’m good enough to be on staff full time. Unless I work towards being the model that they have for whatever position it is, that I won’t be asked on staff next year. That last sentence might be true honestly, and that is absolutely ok. The freedom that God offers us is a freedom from our selves. Freedom from our thoughts. Freed from the captivity of believing that a position makes you more valuable. Freedom from lacking confidence in yourself. Most importantly, freedom from doubting our Creator. He frees and leads us every step of the way. Do we work hard and try to become a better minster/employee every single day? Absolutely! But with the freedom that God offers, we can work towards becoming a better minister for Him, our bosses, ourselves, and the people around us while knowing that at the end of the day, God is in control of our future, not men and women. Not your parents, not your boss, not your school, not your coach, not your doctor, and not anyone else that you can think of. God controls your future. Do you believe that?

In conclusion: I don’t know where you’re at in life, but I do know that you can trust God. Last year around this time I had more optimism and hope. This year I simply just have more trust that He will make a way for whatever it is that He desires for me to do. God wants you to have more of the Holy Spirit! That is His desire! Keep climbing the stairs of trust. At the end of the day, we have to know and fully believe that God controls our future, men and women do not.  

Keep climbing the staircase of trust.