Forty Days Without FearSample

FEAR OF MISSING OUT 

What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Jeremiah 29: 11 NIV: ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’

Abraham, the Father of the faith, was 75 years old when he followed God’s command to leave his hometown: He was a hundred years old when he saw God’s promise fulfilled. Twenty-five years passed between the word being spoken and its fulfilment in his life. The time in-between, was all part of God’s plan.

Delays are not denials. It is never too late to be surprised by God, because all things are made perfect in God’s time. We can have the tendency to write ourselves off, because we have a human, worldly perspective rather than a God-perspective! We cannot escape being trapped in time, but as it passes, the world can tell us we’re too old, too young, or too irrelevant. We can feel our golden opportunity has been and gone. But thankfully God doesn’t listen to, or follow, the status quo or societal norms. 

God shows time and time again that He doesn’t stick to predictable scripts, and He uses individuals the world writes off to reveal His Glory. Ruth, Moses, Mary Magdalene, Peter, Paul, Jonah, and Elizabeth - all of them written off in people’s eyes, became pivotal in God’s plans. 

God has a plan for our lives, our golden years are not behind us, and the door of opportunity has not been closed to us. Let’s trust that in God’s time, all will be made perfect - and let’s worship while we wait!

Action: Let’s bring before God those things we feel we have missed out on, or opportunities we think have passed us by. Lay them before Him in prayer and write down what He wants us to know. God has plans for our lives that don’t have sell by dates.