paths, plans, life....argh?!

'Ite,

It has been a while since I have written on here! Apologies to so many loyal people, haha! Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year. I am unsure about when it becomes a bit unacceptable to ask people if they had a nice Christmas. Although Christmas was only three works ago but it feels so much longer. Uni starts on Monday so its gonna be a week full of Christmas chat, which does feel slightly unnatural. Just a thought for you.

Anyways, enough rambling lets focus!! I am in my third year of university so currently the biggest questions I get asked (beside how my Christmas was) is what are you going to do after you leave? I have asked it to so many people because theoretically once you leave uni you're suppose to get on with your life and become a REAL grown-up. This is all well and good but to be honest not many students want to be real grown-ups. Unless there is a job where I can wake up at whatever time I want and check facebook every four minutes I am not that interested. Slowly I am coming to the conclusion that this is not going to become a reality, so because of this I need to start thinking seriously about my life, and more importantly what God wants for my life.

One of the most encouraging verses in the bible is Jeremiah 29:11
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future"

I've heard this verse so many time before but it wasn't until I just copied it that I notice 'for I know the plans'. I know I love picking out words but here I am doing it again . When it says 'I know' the plans God has already decided, he has planned well before you even knew. Which is so amazing. However, this doesn't mean we can become lazy and just assume that opportunities are going to fall into our laps. God gives opportunities but we need to be ready to see and seize them.

Please check out this clip from Evan Almighty:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bkf-J9TjGPc

Like Morgan Freeman/God says we aren't just zapped with these things but we are presented with an opportunity to show them. This is exactly the same with God's plans, sadly we aren't presented with our life plan in 34 slide PowerPoint presentation. We are shown opportunities and ways to get there. As much has God opens doors he can close doors as well, so options that we might think are right maybe aren't. This isn't easy but we need to trust in God and believe him when he talks in Jeremiah that he has plans that give us hope and future.

I am not saying that once we trust God life is going to be easy and all our dreams are fulfilled, but what I am saying that with God we can ensure that he is going to keep us safe. With God there is hope and that hope is Jesus. Through trusting in him we can have the hope of grace, the hope of salvation and with that we can benefit the fullness of life. We do not need to worry about our future because if we have God in the centre he will clearly show our paths. We just need to be open to them and ready to take action.

Proverbs 16:9:
In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps

We may have planned our lives out to the very small detail but this verse puts it in perspective. If our heart is with God's no matter what plans we have he decides our steps and will get us to that point he desires, with hope and safety.

Reassuring?

Til next time!

xx