A teacher shared this in morning devotionals one day and it has really stuck with me.
"Doubt swallows faith partially because of the way many Christians define what is and what is not 'good.' We have a tendency to plan out the good in ours and our loved ones' lives. We decide that going to college after high school is good. We decide that getting a job that pays well right after college is good. Buying a car, owning a house, getting married, and a few years later starting our families is all good, good, good, and good! We have it all planned out. Then when something that is not good--say, our children don't go to college but join the army instead, or we're diagnosed with cancer, or our husband runs off with another woman or our mother has Alzheimer's, or...When those things happen we fret, we worry, we cry out to God, and we question His goodness and His love. What might happen if we let God define good?" 'Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy. Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him who has all things safely in His hands.--Elisabeth Elliot'.
I am 26 years old and not married, shoot, I've never even dated, but I need to be okay with that, and trust that God has a much better plan for me. I believe He put the desire for marriage and a family in my heart, but I also believe He wants me to fully give Him that part of my life, to trust Him completely with it. So, even with all my friends getting engaged and married, it doesn't mean that it's His time for me. Society says that good is getting married soon after college, but what God says is good is immeasurably more and it will be worth the wait. Will it be an easy wait? No, not at all. But I need lay it down at His feet each and every day and trust that He loves me, He knows the desires of my heart, and that He knows what's best for me. I need to stop fretting and worrying because my life doesn't look like those around me, or because my life doesn't look like what society says it should look like. I shouldn't be caring what society thinks anyway, I should only be caring what God thinks. I should be striving to please Him not others or society. When I didn't get a job when I thought I would I questioned God, I worried, I wondered if He really had a plan for my life. And even with all that doubt, He still blessed me with a wonderful job at a Christian school with an amazing, supportive staff. I am so thankful I didn't get some of the other jobs I applied for, the wait was worth it. Looking back, it would have been so much better to have just trusted God in the first place and not questioned Him. Just a few months ago a job became available at a school overseas I have wanted to teach at for years! Getting into the application and waiting process, I found myself doubting and questioning God all over again. But I made a decision to pray and let it go and if it's in God's plan for me to go that He would allow things to fall into place. And so far, there's been a few moments of anxiousness, but overall, it has been such a blessing to just trust God with it, whatever the outcome.
Sometimes I get so stuck on where I want my life to go that I forget to actually live in the here and now. I am so busy thinking about what my future could be that I miss opportunities to show Christ to people right now. I want that peace, that inward peace that comes from "a heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him."
So, ask yourself, what might happen if we let God define good?
