Proverbs 19:21 Freedom
Food for Thought
An all-creatures.org Guide to Kingdom Living

By Marni Montanez

Proverbs 19:21 New International Version

21. Many are the plans in a person’s heart,
but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

As free people in Christ, we have the freedom to express ourselves as we choose; we also have the freedom to decide what we want to happen in our future.   There is no problem with dreaming or hoping.  God wants us to pray for certain things to happen and for what we want and He encourages us to have desires.   We have many ideas about how to shape our world and we build strategies that move us toward our goals. Our desires are what keep us living life and being excited about it.   But, sometimes our wants and hopes interfere with what is best for us.  We desperately pray for a certain something to happen and when it doesn’t we are disappointed or angry, only to find out through time  that we were misled into believing that a certain something was what we needed and it was actually harmful.  

The issue with making our own plans is that many times if it doesn’t work out we give up and miss out on the great opportunities that come because the plans did not work out.

God knows us better than we know ourselves and He certainly knows our future.  While we guess at what might work, God actually knows and He Has a specific plan to get us where we should be, not where we think we should be.

Many times the enemy will get in the way of the plans we make and this frustrates us.  We end up losing our focus, and as we struggle to make our plans work, we become sucked into the enemy’s plans of confusion and disappointment.    In order to avoid this we must have the right focus and desire the right plans, which are the plans of the Lord for our life.   The only way to know God’s plan for us is to ask Him.  As God becomes our desire, then what is truly good for us manifests into reality.   The desires He has for us will bless us far more than we could bless ourselves.

Psalm 37:4 New King James Version

4. Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.

God gave us His best and wants to continue giving the best for us,  but the only way we can have that  is by submitting ourselves to the One who knows us and knows better what we need.  As we surrender to God’s will and God’s plans, we will be directed to a place of peace. Resisting God will keep us from receiving the right thing at the right time.  God will have His way even if it means He has to take us through some hard times.  Our joy and our peace are His priority and He wants us to live life well. 

Challenge:  Ask God first and foremost.  Seek direction from Him and allow Him to move on your behalf    Allow God’s plans and purposes to unfold and be grateful that He cares more about you than you could ever think.  

God bless,

Marni

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The purpose of this series is to encourage people to live as loving, compassionate, and peacemaking children of God: Jesus tells us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10) God tells us through Micah (6:8), "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God." And we know from Revelation 21:4 that there will be no more mourning, or crying, or pain, or death. Thus, Christian living requires us to set the standards of these conditions here on earth for our fellow human beings, and for the other animals, as a witness to the rest of the world. To do otherwise is not Christian.