How do I know if it’s God’s Plan?
About a month ago, I was introduced to this opportunity. One that would upend my plans and my life to follow through. This opportunity wasn’t bad at all, in fact, it is what God calls us to do. To go and tell the world about him. But i didn’t take it.
I know. You might be wondering, “Gabby, why didn’t you take it”. Well the truth is, I didn’t know. I didn’t know at the time why I didn’t take it. When I told the person closest to me, it was a mess. We had a plan for my life to go a certain way for a couple months now and it seemed to be uprooted by this. And the fact that that plan was now being uprooted seemed to push me more into this opportunity. I had heard stories all the time about “Man plans, God laughs” and stories of God taking people from where they are into new and great things that were unexpected. In hindsight, I associated a big change with God’s voice. But we know that’s not always true.
1 Kings 19 tells the story of the prophet Elijah after he proved that God was the only God. Jezebel was coming after him and he was scared so he fled. That is the first thing that stuck out to me. It started with Elijah running off because he was scared. For so long before the opportunity arose, people in my life were telling me that the major I had wanted to go into was hard. That I would probably fail a class or two and that this road wasn’t gonna be easy. I think something in me wanted to run. Run away from it all and find the easy thing. And though I hadn’t physically ran from it towards something else, my mind was already running and my physical spirit was waiting for the announcer to say go.
After Elijah had ran he went into solitude and prayed endlessly to the Lord. Before this opportunity came about, I had too prayed, I prayed for a way out. Constant “Lord if this isn’t for me give me a sign” prayers, you know. And then the Lord led Elijah further to Mount Sinai. Then it says:
“Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And a voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 1 Kings 19:11-13
As Elijah was waiting for the Lord to speak to him many big things occurred. There was a mighty windstorm, an earthquake, and a fire. Yet each time it says the Lord was not in those. He was in the gentle small whisper and Elijah knew it. So he went out and he was right. He heard the voice of the Lord because he listened to the small whisper. More importantly he didn’t listen to the big things. And we know that God has spoken through these things before. He spoke to Moses through a burning bush so he very well could of been in the fire. But he wasn’t. Elijah wasn’t Moses. These big events; the wind, the earthquake, the fire, they all are known to change lives rapidly and largely. However for Elijah, God was in the whisper.
I relate a lot to Elijah in this story because I felt a tension in my soul. Like the Lord was calling on me. However I first mistook the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire for his voice. I thought the bigger the better, right? The thing that would change me the most is certainly the thing that God wants me to do, right? But just like Elijah, it was the gentle whisper that I had to listen to.
A whisper changes your life by the impact of the words. Through the whisper I learned that the only thing I needed to change was my fear. I kept asking the Lord for a way out but I thought that that way out was only physically. Truly, in hindsight I can see that it was mentally. The Lord exposed the fear that I had through this situation. Instead of thinking I was running to God and a good plan, I was actually running away from being right where he wanted me to be.
“Then the Lord told him, “Go back the same way you came, and travel to the wilderness of Damascus. When you arrive there, anoint Hazael to be king of Aram.” 1 Kings 19:15
“The Lord told Elijah to go back where he came from and called him into ministry there. There is ministry to be done everywhere. I don’t have to leave my city to tell people about God. In fact, when Jesus was telling the disciples to tell others about him before he ascended he says “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts of the Apostles 1:8
He first tells them Jerusalem, right where they were.
I was so wrapped up in how God had spoken to other people, through big changes, that I didn’t see that God was whispering to me and exposing what the root of this was. Maybe you’re like me, faced with a life-changing opportunity. I’m not saying that opportunity isn’t for you but I am saying that you don’t need to compare it to others. Not all of us are faced with a Burning Bush, some of us are faced with a whisper. To know whether it’s truly from God you have to belong to him and trust in him. My young adult pastor also gave me three main questions:
Does it align with God’s word?
Does it produce the character of Christ in your life?
Has it been confirmed by wise council?
These are great questions, but I’d like to add a couple more.
Is there anything in your life you could be running from with this? A family situation, embarrassment, fear?
Are you comparing your change, with this plan, to someone else’s?
Like I said, it’s easy to get caught up in the big dramatics, but sometimes God isn’t in those. He calls us to a place for a reason. And we are where we need to be because he wants us to do something there. It doesn’t always have to be extreme. Sometimes he’s in the quiet time, the small whisper that changes the way you think, not the plan of your life.
