Welcome to an all new Mustard Seed Faith Challenge!
We are thrilled you are here!
DESIGN CHALLENGE: anything depicting SUMMER.
DEVOTIONAL CHALLENGE: Planning, according to God's Word.
How many of you find yourself looking back over your
shoulder at life’s events saying, “Well, THAT didn’t go as planned!” We’ve all been there. We make so many plans and summer is certainly
a season full of them. We have lots of plans for how we want to spend our time
and fill our calendars. Maybe you are a
list-maker like me. And perhaps, like
me, you lose your list before making it half-way to the end. Planners can get very frustrated. If plans
are so easily thwarted in life, does that mean we shouldn’t plan? What becomes the purpose of planning if we
are foiled most of the time? Is it
better to live life spontaneously, believing it’s all in God’s hands? To answer these questions and maybe have a
more enjoyable summer in the process, let’s go to scripture.
God has a lot to say about planning, about “man’s plans.” Psalm 20:4 assures us that God does
bless our plans: “May He grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans!” While He blesses some plans,
He may intentionally supersede other plans we make—“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is
the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” (Proverbs 19:21) Here we see the importance of planning in
synch with God’s plans. You might ask, “How do we operate in harmony with God’s
plans if we don’t know what they are?”
Good question! Proverbs 16:3
helps us with this one, “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be
established.”
Planning is good. Diligently working to make our plans succeed
is praiseworthy...if our hearts are in the right place. I’ll end with the verse
I put on my own design submission for this challenge, Proverbs 30:25 “the ants are a people not strong, yet they
provide their food in the summer.” Ants
have always fascinated me as long as they are not skittering across my kitchen
counter! Their diligence and team work
is amazing. I’ve watched these little
creatures lift much more than their own weight and I’ve marveled how they
coordinate their efforts. Talk about
working in harmony! They have scouts that go check out what lies ahead, then
they all follow the plan. If we could be this way with our planning, beginning
with a heart that is strengthened with devotion to the Lord, if we could work
in harmony with His purposes there is little we cannot accomplish. He will give us all we need to do His will,
to reflect His purposes in our planning and He will bless our plans when they
are in harmony with His own. A simple
three-step planning process might help.
1) Pray. 2) Plan. 3) Perform. Pray,
seeking God’s heart on the matter, plan to the best of your ability, making
corrections as you sense God’s leading, then perform or execute your plans in a
way that will bring God glory. May your
plans for this summer bring you joy and fulfillment. May He bless them and bless
you!
We hope you will be inspired by the design team's creations for this challenge and will link your own inspirations right here!
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