It'll All Work Out
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
When I was applying to college, there was nowhere I wanted to go less than Wofford. I couldn’t wait to leave Spartanburg and go somewhere else. But my mom told me to apply there anyway “just in case,” and when it came down to it, Wofford was the only place it worked out for me to go.
I actually cried as we sent in my deposit - it was so far from what I had planned. But it was absolutely what God had planned.
I am not the only person on the planet who has had things not go the way they planned. Everyone has! And there were a lot of people in the Bible who had things happen not quite like they planned.
Think about Mary for crying out loud. There was no way she ‘planned’ to get pregnant out of wedlock. That was literally one of the worst possible things that could have happened to a girl at that time. And I’ve never met a mom-to-be who didn’t have an exact plan of what she wanted for the birth.
But then, right before Mary was due, Caesar called a census and they had to travel to a different town, where there was no place for them to stay, and they ended up in a stable where she went into labor. You can’t name more that could possibly feel like it was going wrong with Mary’s plan! And yet, through all of that, she had the faith to say, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name” (Luke 1:46-49).
Amazing! I wasn’t able to do that when things were going wrong in my life. And out of all of that ‘wrong,’ in Mary’s life, we were given the gift of Jesus. There’s nothing in this world better than that!
God has a plan for all of us, and He will work all things for the good of those who love Him. That means that when things feel like they are going terribly wrong, God has much bigger and much better things planned than we could possibly imagine.
My time at Wofford ended up being one of the greatest things ever! I ended up changing my major to something much more ‘me,’ met best friends that I now call family, met my husband, and got to have adventures that I never could have possibly experienced anywhere else! I wouldn’t have imagined any of that the day I was crying while I dropped off my deposit. But God had much bigger ideas for me, and He has bigger ideas for you too!
So next time you feel like things aren’t going the way you hoped or planned, think of Mary, and be reminded of what great things God could be working for in your life.