God always has a plan for our lives, which we know to be true because His Word says so. Jeremiah 29:11 has become somewhat of a life verse for me. All my life when I didn’t immediately see the good that was happening, I held tightly to this verse knowing that there is a plan and I just needed to be patient and see what he had for me.

I think it is of great importance to hold onto hope in the Lord even when life feels rocky. In addition, I think it can help us hold onto hope when it feels like God is working in our lives, but we have a hard time deciphering what it is or even more so WHY it is. In times like this, we can ask God to reveal Himself to us.

This can be a difficult thing because sometimes God is putting us through a difficult situation and other times we can make decisions in line with His will when we understand the purpose for our lives. I think most of us have that overwhelming feeling of wanting to align our lives to God’s will. At times, it can feel like we’ll never understand why something happens or if we are doing what we should be.

Through this life journey, I have learned that obeying what God calls us to and doing things that align with His Word typically leads to living life according to His will. I’m not truly an expert, but this seems to be my experience and what others have shared with me especially in this last year.

Recently, I have been trying to find more opportunities to enter into God’s presence so that I could hear what he has for my life. I cannot recommend this enough because we often get so wrapped up in our day to day, that it can be easy to take God for granted or just ignore him altogether.

I still think there is so much more that I can do to draw closer to God, but I have been so thankful for podcasts, worship music, prayer, devotionals, reading His Word, listening to sermons, being around His people. There is absolutely nothing better or like being in God’s presence.

Lately, a message surrounding my life is to REMAIN in God’s presence. This is honestly not as easy as I wish it was, and I have work to do. I think this means to filter what we watch, consider why things happen, talk with God ALL the time, and doing the things mentioned above. Another aspect of this is asking God to reveal Himself to us, and we can hear Him best when we remain in His presence.

I love the music that has been created for the Lord and His glory and two songs that come to my mind are “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” and “Graves into Gardens”. The song “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” includes the sentiment that when we are looking to Jesus or in other words “remaining in Him”, the things of Earth pass away. This is just like God’s Word – 1 John 2:16-17 and Matthew 24:35. The things of this world should not be our focus because they will pass away, but God and His will never will. The other song “Graves into Gardens” speaks about there being nothing better than God. This makes me think about how God is our ultimate hope and love and about how there is nothing like being in His presence.

Since we are taught to have no fear in God’s plan and that he does all things for our good, we should have no fear in remaining in Him, drawing closer to Him, and asking Him to reveal Himself to us. I have to be honest though, this does not mean that life isn’t rocky, but it does allow us to keep hope.

To share how this has personally affected by life, I think it is worth sharing a little testimony. As I mentioned, I have been trying to better immerse myself in God’s presence through podcasts and also in a Bible study at my church. This last week, the message of ‘the vine and the branches’ from John 15. This message appeared to me in 2 different messages 1 day after the other. I had no idea why I was hearing this message, but I had a feeling that since it came up twice that God was trying to tell me something. I am happy to have this opportunity as a message from the Lord, but I just tucked it away in case something were to happen that related to that message.

Turns out, that what He had for me was about to affect me sooner than I expected. 1 day after hearing the message a second time, I got hit with a major life change completely out of my control. The message I had heard was about remaining in the Lord and that he will prune away the pieces of our lives that shouldn’t be there. In addition, God had been revealing to me to ‘obey’. I also didn’t fully know what that meant, but I don’t think I did fully obey because God took full control of that situation and it was certainly more painful then if I had just obeyed right away. I am sad about what happened because just like that my life has changed. BUT. And when we have the Lord, there is ALWAYS a BUT. BUT GOD.

God had put me in a situation of a new opportunity at the start of the week, which actually affected the difficult change. BUT, things weren’t exactly feeling right or sitting right before. I just kept feeling like I was supposed to make a change – like God was tugging at my Spirit and talking to me. Then this other opportunity came up and it seemed a bit like a door to something else, but I didn’t know what it was going to look like or what was ‘for’ me. I still also wasn’t sure I was doing what God had for me specifically.

So then this message appears in my life and THEN I had this weird feeling. I had a thought that maybe I wasn’t supposed to do what I chose, but maybe I was supposed to only pursue this new thing God provided. Less than an hour after that thought and me battling my thoughts, which I gotta say made me feel like I was disobeying or trying to justify something rather than just submitting to God, I heard the life changing news.

This is deeply personal and I have fear of sharing this, but it is a testimony to what God has for me. Not only because of whatever disobedience I was displaying, but because he needed to prune something out of me. I believe what He needed to prune out of me was putting money as an idol, pride, lack of humility, and maybe more that I haven’t even fully figured out yet. I had a ‘good’ thing going, but the purpose of God pruning our lives (which is often even maybe always a difficult/painful experience) is to make room for something better.

Two plants cannot grow in the same place, and cutting back the okay vine or bad vine assists in allowing the healthy vine to come through. This message ended up being so pertinent to my life and I was too consumed in the day to day to hear it or recognize what I was doing or what was happening. There are so many layers to this situation and I’m sure I’ll be peeling them back and trying to hear what God is doing for a long time. I had some things that I contributed as a disobedient child of God that likely led to this outcome, I have fault and I’m imperfect. BUT God, is working on me.

He is working on all of us, and we cannot always fully understand why certain things happen. However, we CAN ask for God to reveal himself in our lives. Through this prayer, God can reveal WHY something may be happening, He can reveal WHAT needed to be pruned away, and He can reveal WHAT’S to come and provide hope and peace that only He can.

I am thankful for a God that cares enough about me to consistently pursue me, provide for me, teach me and teach me and teach me.