How To Miss Out on God’s Plans

“...I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”. Phillippians 3:13-14

Ooh boy. There’s a high calling. I guess there’s a low calling, as well, then, by retrospect.

It’s a lot easier to go for the low calling. Minimum effort. We don’t need to leave our ingrained human patterns.

And God allows things. He’ll allow humans to wreck their lives.

This was hitting home in a deep way recently.

A few weeks ago, I made an offer on a house. I was super excited. I’ve been diligently searching for the last couple of years, looking at dozens and dozens of properties. There’s not a lot of available houses in the area that I live, and I might have been getting a little desperate.

Maybe a little.

So I made an offer. And it was crazy less than their asking price. And they accepted it! Score!

At least, they verbally accepted it. The paperwork wasn’t all sorted yet.

In the meantime, someone I respected challenged me. “Are you sure that God’s perfect will for you?”

It really took me back. But I started looking deeper into my own heart. Was I really sure this was God’s will?

I don’t believe seeking God is really that mystical of a thing. Most people, even people who aren’t religious, talk about going from their “gut”. Learning to trust their instinct. That sort of thing.

Well, seeking God is very similar. It’s learning to really tap into what we have a “green light” in. Learning to recognize that still, small Voice in our heart.

Of course, if we have a bias in that, it makes it hard to hear.

As I really got honest with myself, I realized I had a bias. I didn’t have a pure heart in seeking God. I wanted that property. I really, really wanted it.

But my desire to get it didn’t mean God wanted it for me.

As I got more honest with myself, I realized: No. That wasn’t the property.

But it was really difficult! I had a serious case of “Fear Of Missing Out”, or FOMO. Even when I got on the phone to terminate the deal, I was kicking myself.

All I could think was: “but, hey, I finally found a property I could buy! And it’s right there! Why not?”

Well, because of this: God had something better for me.

There’s a difference between God’s “permissive” will and God’s PERFECT will.

Look, I’ll show you.

1 Samuel 8 talks about how the Israelites begged for a king to rule over them. Up until that point, God had appointed judges and prophets to unite the mostly autonomous tribes of Israel. There was a lot more freedom.

But Israel begged for a king.

God warned the Israelites that a king would tax them. He’d enslave their sons and daughters. A king would take the best of their land and use it for his own benefit.

But the Israelites insisted.

See, a king was not God’s perfect will.

But our desires move God.

Our desires can move the Almighty. Really. Crazy, isn’t it?

So, because of the Israelites’ passion for this idea of a king, God relented. He PERMITTED it.

It wasn’t perfect. Oh no. Who knows how God would’ve continued to lead and protect the children of Israel if they would have decided to go with God’s perfect will. 

We can’t know that. Because God PERMITTED Israel to leave His perfect plans.

Because they insisted. Because Israel had plans of their own.

And that was like me. If I was left to my own devices, without help. I would’ve gone through and bought the house.

And who cares? It probably would’ve worked out, right?

No. Wrong. I wouldn’t have gotten to see what God wanted to do.

You know how I know I wouldn’t have gotten to see what God would do if I would’ve gone that way?

Because yesterday, I got to see what God wanted to do.

I worked for years helping to build a fancy house. Not just any house. A gorgeous place. Practically a mansion. 

I joked to someone that that house built me. That’s because God was working in my heart so much while I was building it. So many parts of it God used to work a brand new creation in me.

I was just helping build it, but while I was working on it, God spoke to me that that house was going to be mine.

Bonkers thing to hear deep on the inside of your heart. I almost spoke it out loud, but I squelched it. No way I could afford something like this. God must be crazy.

So, I heard that ten years ago. And I filed that away in the box titled “crazy things God says about my life”.

Yesterday, God brought that house back into my life. 

I’m a pretty private person, so I’m not going to give away all the details. But, long story short, apparently God knows a thing or two.

I’m buying that place.

It’s exponentially better than the place that I said good-bye to. My “fear of missing out” was just that. Fear.

In reality, if I didn’t let go of that ramshackle property I was so excited to find a few weeks ago, I would’ve missed out on what God wanted to do.

I’d been waiting all that time.

But in the eleventh hour, at the last minute, I would’ve settled for something much less.

Right before I got to the answer finally. I would’ve settled.

I told God when I was a boy that I wanted to live an “extraordinary life”. And I’m convinced this is why we don’t get to have an extraordinary life: because we settle.

Over and over again. In many big and little decisions.

When God was forcing me to get honest about my motivations, I realized something. 

I had something in God’s way. I was willing to settle.

Partially, I think part of it was I didn’t REALLY believe God has something perfect for me. I didn’t really believe. Not believing is a real “no-go” when walking with the Almighty God.

Believing is the only way TO walk with God.

“For without faith, it is impossible to please God”. Hebrew 11:6.

Dare to believe impossible things. The White Queen tells Alice in Alice in Wonderland: “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Reader, I challenge you to believe at least six impossible things. Believe God can provide for you exceedingly and abundantly more than you can ask or think, to paraphrase Ephesians 3:20.

Believe that He has answers for you in many aspects of your life.

And then wait on Him to show up. 

Don’t settle. Don’t be like me, ready to settle at the last minute, right before God is willing to show up.

Don’t let your desires move you out of that place of waiting, like the Israelites did. Wait for the glory. Wait for the testimony.

Wait for the perfect will of God.