Toward Destiny

God has a plan for the world that involves a destiny for each of us who are in Christ. We all want to know what His plan for us is. I struggled with trying to figure this out when I was looking toward college and what courses I would take. Now that I am much older, I love I finally know more about what my destiny is, but God knew it all along!

Romans 8:28 (NKJV) tells us this: “We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.”

Who God Is

This doesn’t mean that God is behind the scenes pulling the strings, and we are all just puppets. It also does not mean that nothing bad will ever happen to us. It just means that God is different from humans. He is not limited to one dimension or time. He stands outside of time. He sees not only what is happening right now, but everything that has ever occurred and everything that will occur.

God knows the future and knows what we need to do next. When we are willing to follow Him, He will lead us in the right way to fulfill our destiny. He’s the only one who can do that.

It’s really hard for me to wrap my brain around this because I can’t even remember what I did last month unless I wrote it down somewhere, and then I have to remember where I wrote it. How can God keep track of all 7.9 billion people in the world? The answer is simple: because He is God!

Choices

He knows the choices and decisions we are going to make, but in the moment we are making the decision, He does not intervene. He allows us to make the choice. We might think that God has negated our free will, but that is not the case.

He knows things would be easier if we made the choice sooner to follow Him, but still He keeps working with us because He knows eventually we will listen and follow through.

Romans 6:16 (TPT) says, “Don’t you realize that grace frees you to choose your own master? But choose carefully, for you surrender yourself to become a servant—to be bound to the one you choose to obey. If you choose to love sin, it will become your master, and it will own you and reward you with death. But if you choose to love and obey God, He will lead you into perfect righteousness.”

Choosing what we will love is a choice we get to make. Not choosing is to choose our default pattern which is always our sin nature. As Paul says, when we choose to love and obey God, He has power over us rather than sin or bad choices that we have made in the past. We always have a choice.

God’s Designed Purpose

God weaves the choices and actions of all 7.9 billion people in the world together by working on the hearts of those who need to move or make a decision. This is in order to help us do what we need to do.

God will use everything we have been through, both the good and the bad, the suffering and the rejoicing, for our good, which means how we fit into His master plan.

What could be better for us than to be smack dab in the middle of God’s designed plan? That’s what we want. It’s what we are here for. It’s what we live for.

What Is My Destiny?

We have to understand that even the bad things that happen to us are things God can weave into our lives and use them for good. I have seen this in my own life. I have made so many blunders and mistakes on my journey. Eating myself toward an early grave was one of those that took up a huge part of my adult life.

All through my life there was one main thing I would pray about: What is my destiny? Every time I would pray about that, God would speak to me about getting my temple, or body, in shape. I thought God was ignoring me or not listening to me.

I am a writer. I’ve always been a writer. I wrote mainly articles for newspapers and magazines about people. Many were testimony-type articles. Even if I wrote for a secular paper or magazine, I always tried to work in the faith angle.

When I was a kid, God had shown me I would one day write a book about someone who had done something great with God’s help. So that’s mainly what I was praying about. God, who is the person I am to write a book about?

Destiny and Weight Loss

The reason God always answered my prayer by encouraging me to lose weight using the plan He had given me back in 1977 was because He knew my destiny was tied to losing an extreme amount of weight. I had no idea that part of my destiny would be writing Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds and Stopped Trying to Earn God’s Favor.

When you weigh 430 pounds, the last thing you want to do is be the center of attention. If I had known years ago that the book I would write would be about me, I would have said no, especially if I knew I would be doing interviews on national television shows across the country, speaking at workshops and events, coaching others and even doing a podcast.

Because God is who He is and because He could see what was going to happen to me in the future, He knew I had to do certain things to get there. Being the stubborn person I was, He also knew I was going to have to hit rock bottom first.

God Knows Me

God knew me then, and He knows me now. He knows my issues today and is even more concerned about them than I am. He loves me and wants the best for me. He wants me to complete the destiny He has for me.

Ephesians 2:10 tells us, “We have become His poetry, a re-created people that will fulfill the destiny He has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it!”

No matter how you were born or under what circumstances or into what family or situation, no matter what anyone has told you through the years, you are no accident. God imparted gifts and talents to you that He planned for you to use to fulfill your specific destiny. He had your destiny planned even before you were born. He made sure you arrived on this planet at this time because He had and still has plans for you.

You Are Called

If you love God, you are called. The only way you can fulfill the calling He has for you is to make sure your life is joined, united and entwined with Jesus.

When you desire follow Him and His designed purpose for you, then the Holy Spirit will weave everything in your life together—the good, the bad and the ugly—to fulfill His designed purpose for you! And that will be good for the world, for God and for you.

For more on this topic, check out this episode of Sweet Grace for Your Journey, called What Is Your Destiny? To get the action steps and challenges for this and other lessons in the Spirit-Led Transformation Course, join Overcomers Academy.

This article originally appeared at teresashieldsparker.com.{eoa}

Teresa Shields Parker is the author of six books and two study guides, including her No. 1 bestseller, Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds. Her sixth book, Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds, is live on Amazon. She blogs at teresashieldsparker.com. She is also a Christian weight loss coach (check out her coaching group at Overcomers Academy) and speaker. Don’t miss her podcast, Sweet Grace for Your Journey, available on CPN.

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