YOUR WAY, LORD, NOT MINE WAY!

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.                     Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJV)

Everyday, we make plans for our lives. How we plan to retire, what to eat, how to keep ourselves healthy, the type of friends we choose, the person we choose to marry and so on. We make many choices to suit our social or economic status. But are these plans the plans that are in line with God's plans for our lives? If you eat healthy and still fall sick, is it in the will of God? You may be in the permissive will of God but there is a more perfect will of God for you. His thoughts for you far more outweigh yours thoughts and ways. It may not be what you desire at a particular time but it is all part of the bigger plan that He has for your life. God does not do anything by chance. His ways are calculated with your destiny in mind and that is to bring you to an expected end where you have a "hope and a future". The song writer, Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), summarized Isaiah 55:8-9 in a simplistic everyday language that captures what these verses mean:

1	Thy way, not mine, O Lord,   However dark it be; Lead me by Thine own hand,   Choose out the Path for me.
2	Smooth let it be, or rough,   It will be still the best; Winding or straight it leads   Right onward to Thy rest.
3	I dare not choose my lot;   I would not if I might: Choose Thou for me, my God,   So shall I walk aright.
4	Take Thou my cup, and it   With joy or sorrow fill, As best to Thee may seem;   Choose Thou my good and ill.
5	Choose Thou for me my friends,   My sickness or my health. Choose Thou my cares for me,   My poverty or wealth.
6	Not mine, not mine the choice,   In things both great and small; Be Thou my guide, my strength,   My wisdom and my all.

Click to listen to the tune of this hymn.

Are you ready to accept the perfect will of God for your life? It may not be pleasant for the time being but in the end, "all things work for the good of those who love the Lord" 

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

Nothing occurs in a vacuum. Every puzzle of your life is a piece of the larger puzzle yet to be achieved in God's plan. 

Let your prayer today be "Lord, not my choice, in things both small and great; Be thou my guide, my strength, my wisdom and my all. May I walk in your perfect thought and ways for me. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen"