A Redesigned Life By Tracy SteelSample

Day One

A Handsewn Masterpiece

Design principle to ponder: Movement

Principle helps us: remember God is in control of our lives and that he has a purpose for everything that happens whenever life doesn’t go as planned.

Are parts of your life not turning out the way you expected or hoped? You’re not alone. Most of us are living a life we did not design. So what do we do? And what about God? Where is he when life doesn’t make sense? 

The truth is, I’m living a life I didn’t design but that God designed for me. I am me. A girl born and raised on the flat and humid plains of Kansas. I’m not a supermodel, celebrity, or accomplished athlete, and the world yawns at me. 

But then . . . God. He is redesigning me. 

Some seasons of my life are turning out as I had hoped. Other parts of my life surprise me in a hilariously awesome way, exceeding anything I could plan for or dream up myself. In fact, I’m supposed to be living in New York City making millions of dollars and owning my own interior design firm. But now I’m involved in women’s ministry making way less than a million dollars. 

From redesigning homes to redesigning hearts. From one kind of interior design to another kind of interior design. But God is in the middle of every season of my life and he is in actively engaged and present in your life as well. He’s hand sewing each of our lives into a one-of-a-kind, high-end couture masterpiece. 

We can trust him with what doesn’t make sense because God’s movement in our lives is purposeful and perfectly timed. He’s in the business of turning people who are discarded, misunderstood, and overlooked into accepted, known, and celebrated masterpieces. 

Like a human interior designer or artist uses the principle of movement to cause our eyes to rest on the focal point of a room or painting, God also moves through a curve of surprise, edge of rejection, or straight line of truth to bring the eyes of our heart back onto the intended focal point of our life, which is God, Himself. He does this because he is providential, or in complete control of our lives. We can trust God because he knows what is to come because he already designed it or allows for it to happen.

Be encouraged then, whenever your faith or the world around you wobbles. Remain steadfast or constant in your faith by keeping your eyes fixed upon your ultimate Constant. For God’s gracious and loving hands are persistent, sewing everything together for our good. Yes, the mending of God’s movement may hurt. Yes, the stitching may not make sense yet—or perhaps ever, this side of heaven. Yet God is worthy of our praise as our artistic Creator. He will not wobble and is in control of his creation. What he is stitching, mending, and creating within and around us is for our greatest good and his greatest glory. 

In what ways is God redesigning your life right now in ways that surprise you?