Getting In God’s Way

I am presently reading a book by Erwin Lutzer entitled, “Making The Best Of A Bad Decision.” It is a wonderful book which presses home the fact that God specializes in taking the life resulting from a wrong decision, and turning it into a life that is blessed by Him.

The fact is that while we often make mistakes that we think condemn us to missing out on God’s best, the Bible never speaks of God having in mind anything for us that is less than His best. His will is described in Romans 12:2, for example, as “good, acceptable, and perfect.” God does not have a plan that is “kind of good, sort of acceptable, and less than perfect.”

God’s will is “plan A all the way.” We are either in His will or out of His will. And as we are willing  surrender our lives to Him, God can take even our bad decisions that have forever changed the circumstances of our life, and make them fit into His purposes. But we must be willing to fully surrender our lives to Him in order for that to happen. Remember that before Paul’s description of God’s “good, acceptable and perfect will,” in Romans 12:2, he gives us the admonition in Romans 12:1 to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God.”

Lutzer shares the following poem, which very effectively drives home this point:

“As children bring their broken toys,
With tears for us to mend,
I brought my broken dreams to God,
Because He was my friend.

But then instead of leaving Him,
In peace to work alone,
I hung around and tried to help,
With ways that were my own.

At last I snatched them back and cried,
“How can you be so slow?”
“My child,” He said, “What could I do?
You never did let go?”

As long as we are unwilling to take our hands off our life and leave it completely with God, we will be forever getting in His way and preventing us from knowing His best. But as we get out of the way and allow God to have His way, He can take even the broken pieces of our lives and make them into someting beautiful.

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