When Things Don't Go the Way You ExpectSample

Obedience Pays Off

After I had been pastor at our church by myself for about four years following my husband’s death, the Lord began to deal with me about moving back to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Both our sons had been born there, and my husband had gone to Bible school there in the early ‘80s.

I didn’t want to go! I didn’t want to move back to the Midwest, I didn’t want to move away from my natural family and my wonderful church family. Plus, I just didn’t see how moving back to Oklahoma would be a promotion.

But God kept nudging me. When it’s His idea, it sticks around. You can ignore Him for a while, or even try running away from Him, but He just keeps bringing you back to His original plan.

I’ll be honest; it took me a while to get on board with God’s plan. But because God kept prodding, eventually my sons and I agreed that the move was God’s plan for us.

Following this part of God’s plan was just about the scariest thing I had ever done, and it took all my faith. To make a long story short, I ended up getting a job as a writer at a private Christian university, and my working there enabled both my sons to attend that university for four years almost for free.

If you had told me five years earlier that I would be able to put two boys through a private university by myself at almost no cost, I would not have believed you. None of this was what I had expected life to look like. Yet God did so much for us because we chose to trust and obey Him.

After a few years in Tulsa, I got my dream job teaching at the Bible school that my husband had attended all those years before. Only God could arrange that, and I wouldn’t have gotten that job if I hadn’t been in the right place, serving faithfully where He had put me.

I found out that you cannot outdo God. He has a good plan, and if you’ll stick with Him when unexpected things happen, He has a way to work things out in your favor far beyond what you can imagine.