When God orders your steps...

          ​When this year 2020 began, no one knew what to expect. Many of us had plans, hopes, dreams that we were hoping to see realized. And then the corona virus made an “appearance” that seemed to bring everything to a stop. All of a sudden, the hopes, dreams and visions seemed to be in danger of not materializing. Some of us may have started to wonder and ask, “God what next?” “What should I do now?” “Does it even make any sense to still hope and dream?” The thing is, it wasn’t just one person or a few people being affected but everyone. 
         But as time went along we realized that life was still going on. Life had not stopped progressing day after day … it just maybe wasn’t progressing in the way we had expected or hoped, but it went on … for the most part.
         During all of this uncertainty, blessings, opportunities, open doors were still presenting themselves and all people had to do was trust God and walk into them. I am reminded of a few testimonies one of which concerns a student of mine who chose to participate in a school-based competition geared towards encouraging students to find ways of improving their school and community in some way. Now, keep in mind, we were on a lock down because of the corona pandemic and schools were closed. Yet, she and other students from various schools chose to take part. When she began I’m pretty sure she did not anticipate the pitfalls and challenges she would face during this journey. It was at times discouraging for her, but she kept pressing on. When one door that she really thought she needed was unexpectedly shut in her face, she felt that she could not go on, she just wanted to give up. But God used her mother to encourage her to get back up and think of another way of completing her project. She heeded her mother’s encouragement and tried again, and found, I think, a better and even more creative way of presenting her project.
​          Yes, she won that competition. She did not win it her way with her original plan, but I believe she won it God’s way, because God could see what she could not. He saw that her final presentation was much more effective and pertinent to this corona pandemic season than her original idea would have been. God had been ordering her steps – even the failures – all along but she just had to trust Him and choose not to give up. To go a bit further, He had to, it would seem, "throw out" her ideas, her plans, her way of doing this project, to bring her to the point of doing it the way He knew was best. 
          And sometimes that is what God does. He derails us, He sets up obstacles in our way, so that we can finally do it His way not our own. It doesn’t always mean that we won’t get what we want, but we just may not get it the way we expected. In the end, we won’t get the glory, we won’t be able to pat ourselves on the back and say, “I did it.” Instead, all of the honour and glory will go to our God, who is still able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

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