I Never Saw It Coming
 By Luann Prater

...Therefore, no one can discover anything about their future. Ecc. 7:14

One night while driving to church I asked my then 16-year-old daughter, "What is your favorite thing about living, right now?" "That's a great question!" she replied. She pondered a moment and then began to reveal what made her life tick.

"This is an incredible time for me... and I never saw it coming." she said. "This year is less about proving myself and more about being myself. It's a beautiful spot. I laugh every day."

My heart smiled as I clung to those thoughts. She had so much more to share, but these words stuck to my mind like flypaper. For a junior in high school to sort out what's real from what's fake, what's true from what's false, what's important from what is worthless, is exciting stuff for a mom.

She made very deliberate decisions when she entered high school two years earlier. The most important one was asking God to lead her through decisions about dating, classes, choosing friends and choosing work. Her rationale: why allow your life to be jerked around by emotions that you are neither prepared for or ready to handle. Turn it over to God and anxiously anticipate the outcome.

And in her junior year those tough choices began to pay off. Her peers respected her for who she was and what she stood for. She saw life as a beautiful spot, one to be enjoyed and savored. And the remarkable part is she never saw it coming.

God expects us to wait in eager anticipation of the future plans He has laid out for us. When we become adults we crowd God out of the plan. We take jobs, we choose mates and we raise children without checking first with the Plan-Maker… God. He has given us a brain, so surely we can figure this out on our own, right? Why? Why risk the emotional upheaval wrong decisions can make when we have a heavenly Father with a perfect plan?

Lord, we pray today that every decision is made through the filter of Your perfect plan, so that one day we can say, "Wow! I never saw it coming!" In Jesus’ name, amen.

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© 2020 by Luann Prater.  All rights reserved.

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