Plan B

The Lord was displeased with Moses’ actions: “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them” (Numbers 20:12).

I have known since 2002 that I had a call of ministry on my life. It has been in the past several years that I understood my definitive purpose(s). One particular anointing that I have was birthed out of a very significant relationship in my past. I met someone and fell in love with him and he asked me to marry him. I believed in this relationship and one day it ended. At first I was devastated, but soon afterwards I reconciled with myself that it was over. Not long after that, the Lord spoke to me that it was ‘not’ over and he correlated this relationship to Lazarus. The Lord told he was going to resurrect our relationship and that he would move him to Dallas. Four years later I saw the manifestation of God’s promise. He moved to Dallas and we got engaged. It all seemed to be God, that this was it and that his presence was with us. God gave me more than I could ask or think in an engagement. God was given great glory on a sailboat, and heading towards the sun and watching it fall towards the earth and him being down on one knee…..there was joy, fear and tears, even though I knew that this is what God had for us. After he proposed, we sailed back to watch a beautiful fireworks show on the water…..it was magical! We began planning our wedding and my dreams were suddenly lost, he left me 2 months before our wedding! I screamed in hysteria, God, what just happened, is not what you said!?

After we split up, I still held on the possibility that he may come back, however, it was all up to God. I remember before he left, he was sitting on the couch one night and he was in God’s word, and I said, ‘what are you getting’? He said, ‘God is basically telling me to stop doing bad things’. I am so glad that I had that conversation. Most people want to get mad at God and blame him, but I know for fact that God was trying to speak to him, but God still allowed my fiancé to exercise his own free will. Years began to pass and I still hoped that he would come back. I remember several years back a friend began to talk to me about being open to Plan B. God even gave her a word for me that Plan B can be just as good or better than Plan A. I did not want to be open to it. Then one day something changed in me and I said that I had wasted enough time waiting on this person. God, no offense, but I am moving on and if you want to bring that person back I will be open, but I am moving on because I am dating and I am having a hard time being ALL IN because my hope is displaced. I literally shut the door emotionally, physically and spiritually. Then one day, I met someone who I really liked and began to be open to the possibility of Plan B. God, if this is what Plan B feels like, it is amazing !!! It gave me hope to love again!

God began to show me that there are many Plan B(s) in his word. Moses was a leader and chosen to lead God’s people out of Egypt and to the promised land. Moses got in the way of himself and because of his anger, God said that you will not lead my people into the promised land, you will only be allowed to see it from a distance. God raised up Joshua to take his people into the promised land.

We can look at Saul. The people wanted a King and Samuel anointed him to reign over God’s people. The same is true for Saul. He got in the way of himself and was a people pleaser and directly disobeyed God and he was rejected as King. God’s plan b was David. He was a man after God’s own heart. David had a son named Solomon, he was the wisest man to ever live and was in the lineage of Jesus.

Ruth is another example. She was married into a family and her dreams were crushed when her father-n-law, brother-n-law and husband died. God had a plan b for Ruth. While she was obedient and vowed to stay with her mother-n-law, she would later meet Boaz and become the great great grandmother of Jesus.

I know you have had shattered dreams and I want to encourage you that whatever you have lost that God has a back up plan. Please don’t get stuck for years like I did expecting my Plan A to come to pass. I think about the years that I have lost not being open for God to do a new thing in my life. That is what finally made me have a paradigm shift….I don’t have time to waste. I pray that you are not angry with God. So many people who seek wisdom from me often ask, why did God allow their situation? I have proof that God was in fact trying to speak to my fiancé, but he chose his own way. God truly wants the best for us. And just because Plan A does not work out, God can still birth amazing things through our Plan B(s). I pray that you would see your situation in a whole new light today and refuse to look in the rearview mirror, because your past cannot go into your future. Make a decision today not to mourn any longer on what is lost, but look forward to what God has in store for you.

‘What is ahead of you is greater than anything that is behind you’ ckk

 

Love is an Action

“You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.” Revelation 2:4-5 (ESV)

Love is an action, not just emotion. Love is something you do.

It’s easy to love somebody who loves you, isn’t it? It takes nothing at all. But real love acts and does the loving thing when people don’t deserve it, when they don’t respond, or when you don’t feel it. Actually, acting in love when you don’t feel it is the highest form of love. It’s a more mature love when you act loving toward a person who does not respond the same way.

Have you also noticed that it’s easier to act your way into a feeling than it is to feel your way into an action? Some of you have been in marriages for a long time, and the truth is, the flame has gone out. The thrill is gone. You’re living separate lives in the same house. How do you rekindle that romance? How do you rekindle the feeling of love?

You act your way into a feeling. You may say, “I don’t feel like acting loving toward them.” So what? If you start acting in love, I guarantee you the feelings will follow — because feelings follow behavior.

“You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first” (ESV).

What Jesus told the Church is the same principle for renewing the love in a marriage or any other relationship. You remember, you repent, and you do the things you did at first. The reason the love went away is you stopped doing the things that created the love in the early days.

God doesn’t want you living by your feelings. He wants you living by faith. So you know what he does? Sometimes he lets the feelings go away. Then you have to love by faith and live by faith. When you love somebody and do the loving thing, even when he’s not responding and even maybe when he’s retaliating, you are loving by faith. That is an action.

Talk It Over

How do you show your love to the people around you through actions?
Who is the unloving person around you who needs to see your love demonstrated to him or her through action?
What “works you did at first” do you need to revive to help grow a relationship?