Jeremiah 29:11 is a very famous verse. It says, “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.” There is so much reassurance in this verse, there is so much hope we can hold onto – God, the God who created the universe, has GOOD plans for ME! It is right to feel peace and hope in the good plans God has for each of our lives. But what does it require of us?
I am reminded of my 6-year old son, Luke, who has great plans for his life to be a firefighter. And my 3-year old daughter Grace has plans to be a doctor. Those are good plans for their lives, plans that could lead to hope and a future, but whether they are part of God’s plans or not – we will have to wait and see. The reality is, in America, we have so many choices and so many opportunities. We are asking our children what they want to do and what they want to be from the time they are 2-years old. But are our own good plans for our lives God’s good plans?
In my own life, I have been a planner, goal oriented, and an achiever. Since I was young I had no issue running after things in my life or reaching goals. This eventually caught up with me though. You see, if we want God’s good plans for our lives, we have to lay down our good plans for our lives. We live in a culture filled with opportunities to make ourselves happy or take matters into our own hands. But God can’t use a controlling achiever, or a controlling person who is addicted to finding things to make them happy (success, TV, alcohol, material possessions – whatever it may be). God can only use someone who is submitted, heart, soul and mind (Matt. 22:37).
Our definition of “good” and God’s definition of “good” are not the same. Why? Because God is the one who defines “good”. He is the true source of GOOD (Ps. 100:5, Ps. 107:1, James 1:17, Rom. 8:28)! So we can only know good in our lives by drawing closer to Him and allowing HIM to move and orchestrate HIS goodness in us.
I personally reached a point in my life where God got a hold of me and revealed to me that I had been controlling the plans in my life. They weren’t all bad, in fact – some of the things I wanted to control was the timing of certain callings God had on my life. But the problem was I didn’t have a completely yielded heart to what HE wanted and WHEN HE wanted it. If I didn’t relinquish control of HIS plans – many of HIS good plans would not come to pass. It doesn’t mean He doesn’t love us and won’t care for us, but it does mean that he can’t use us in the way He would like to. And it means that we are stubborn and controlling people. Ouch.
You may not consider yourself in that category, but if you haven’t relinquished control to God, then there is some element of stubborn control in your heart. Not good. We saw what happened to the Israelites trying to get to the promised land when they became a stubborn and controlling people, it ended up taking them much longer to see the promised land! The same goes for us. The longer we hold on to our own ideas, expectations, wants and desires and try to control our lives – the longer it takes for us to see God’s goodness and the promised land He has for you.
My husband John and I went through a season of God teaching us this very lesson. We had to submit, we had to yield. Truthfully, it’s not always easy. We had to stop trying to control everything or “make things happen” – which had been a pattern we had lived for a season. But, it was actually during that time of brokenness and submission before the Lord, yielding to His plans, that He began to reveal to us the pastoral call on our lives in a significant way. We knew that He was leading us to completely lay it down before Him, not work at making it happen in any way, but completely trust Him and His timing.
From that place of submission, God did bring about His plans – in a way that we could never have imagined. As we recently stepped into the lead pastor position at our local church, it was unexpected and not how we had anticipated or would have planned, but that made a way for us to see that it was so clearly HIM orchestrating, His hand on it. And it was WAY BETTER than we could ever have planned for our lives. You see, God loves to surprise and delight us with His goodness in our lives – when we are submitted. And it’s in the season of waiting that we learn true trust in Him – that’s all He’s asking for. SUBMIT your heart and TRUST me for my goodness.
Sweet sister, I want to encourage you that this is a process. But He is with you in it! And once you see the fruit of God’s goodness spring up in your life after you have laid down your own personal ambitions and plans – you won’t look back. I will testify, His plans are SO much better than ours.
Have you been waiting to see God’s good plans unfold in your life? All it starts is with an honest prayer. God I lay down my expectations, my plans, and I ask for yours. Then it takes action on your part. Not the kind of action you may be used to, but an active action of submission. Not to try and move mountains on your own, but to keep activelylaying down and trusting Him. It’s the opposite of what we normally think the word action means, but in order to keep allowing His goodness, we have to actively be submitting.
I promise that you will begin to see Him move in your life! Stay in His Word, come before Him with thanksgiving and praise, and spend time with Him. The God that holds the universe in your hand loves you and controls it all – release to Him the control over your life – he truly does have GOOD plans.
Pray with me…Jesus, I release control over my life. I don’t want my good plans, I want YOUR good plans. Lead me and help me to continuously submit and yield to you. Amen.
This is a different kind of post than normal, but I have a very important family update…
John and I have some exciting news to share with you! We are stepping into the role of Lead Pastors at our church, Antioch Community Church Ann Arbor. We are so excited about God’s amazing plans He is unfolding in our lives, and would love to share this journey with you.
Our Journey For many years, we have both felt that God has placed a pastoral call on our lives, however, we have felt that God was leading us to trust Him with HIS timing and to lay it down until He opened the doors for us.
At the beginning of this year, we found out that our current lead pastors, Jordan and Christy Ogden, were stepping down from the role so they could move back to Texas to be closer to family. Jordan and Christy moved from Texas over 7 years ago after God called them to plant this church here, in Ann Arbor, MI.
When our overseer team and board of advisors opened up the candidacy, the desire was to have a lead pastor with strong ties to Michigan, specifically a “son and daughter of Michigan.”
At this point in the process, we (John and Jami) both felt that God was stirring our hearts. We spent a significant amount of time praying about God’s timing. After much prayer, discussion – and many confirmations from the Lord, we submitted ourselves as candidates for the next Lead Pastors.
We then went through a thorough interview process with our overseers and board of advisors and were moved forward and presented as the next Lead Pastors to the church on Sunday, May 30th, (you can watch the announcement here) and we will be ordained and installed on Sunday, June 27th.
We are thrilled, humbled and overwhelmed at God’s plans for us, which are more than we could have ever imagined or orchestrated for ourselves (Eph. 3:20). We are also so thankful that, in fact, He has called us here, to our home state of Michigan. He is so good!
What will this look like for our family and our church? At this time, we will be bi-vocational and John will continue with his current job. Given the current size of our church and our strong leadership team, we feel confident in our ability to do so. This will open up opportunities for our church in other ways, such as allowing more finances for a new building – which we need very much, since we have been without an “official” meeting space since COVID.
We will also operate as a pastoral team, both leading and teaching at the church, and we truly believe God’s grace and favor will be on us during this season of John being bi-vocational to help us do all things well.
How can you partner with us? You can PRAY!
Please pray for us as we transition into this role, that God would lead us in wisdom and give us the ability to follow the direction and vision he has for HIS church.
Please pray for our church congregation during this transition.
Please pray that God will provide our church with a new facility to meet in! We are currently blessed to meet outside at a local ranch, but have a goal to have a new facility by September so we can get settled in before the weather changes.
Please pray for our family (John, Jami, Luke and Grace) that God would continue to lead us in the calling He has for our lives. This is part of Luke and Grace’s story too, as we believe God will train them up for the individual plans He has for each of them.
Pray for God’s plans for HIS church here in Ann Arbor. We believe for BIG things to come!
Please join us! If you would like to join us on June 27th (10 AM EST) when we are ordained and installed, you can join us in person, or tune in on Antioch Ann Arbor’s Facebook page for livestream, or Youtube channel.
One of my five year old son’s favorite movies is Disney’s Cars. And not only is there one Cars movie, there are three! I have to admit, it’s one of my favorite Disney movies. It’s the story of Lightning McQueen, a young and fast rookie race car who learns the hard lesson that having friends and being kind are more important than winning a race. Cars 2 takes Lightning McQueen on an adventure to races in Tokyo, Japan and Italy, and England. Then in Cars 3, we see a much older Lightning McQueen. He’s had a long and successful career, but isn’t ready to retire yet. There is a younger, newer and faster race car named Jackson Storm, and Lightning realizes he needs help to prepare for a race against him. He gets matched up with a young race trainer named Cruz Ramirez.
Cruz and Lightning don’t see eye to eye at first, Lightning isn’t very fond of Cruz’s new high tech methods of training. Over time we see a friendship develop, and over time it becomes evident that Cruz is actually supposed to be a racer, not a trainer. She never planned to just sit on the sidelines and be a trainer for other cars, she used to dream to race!
Then, the unimaginable happens! During a practice race, Cruz beats Lightning! Lightning is a little taken back by this at first, but he soon realizes that this Cruz truly is a race car. It’s just that she’s been told her whole life that she isn’t, even though she had always dreamed of being a race car. She’s also been placed in a position that is below her calling.
Cruz has started to believe lies. She was built and designed to be a race car. It’s her destiny and her calling so to speak (in a car world of course) Somewhere along the way though, her true identity, that she was built and designed to be a race car, was compromised. She started believing the lies being spoken to her. She was never meant to stay in the position of race car trainer.
The Mighty Call on Your Life I’m so strongly gripped with how often this happens to God’s daughters. Every single one of you has a mighty, mighty calling. And when I say mighty, I don’t necessarily mean the most visible calling. I mean a mighty calling that is powerful because he that is in you is greater than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4). It’s mighty because of the confidence we are meant to have in God’s calling, God’s placement, and God’s destiny in our lives. It is a unique position, that God designed for you, from the moment of conception! Just like Cruz was built to be a race car, God has built you for your destiny and purpose, from your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:16), he created you to be a racer. To run your race.
The author of Hebrews (AMP) says it this way in chapter 12:1-3… “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who by faith have testified to the truth of God’s absolute faithfulness], stripping off every unnecessary weight and the sin which so easily and cleverly entangles us, let us run with endurance and active persistence the race that is set before us, [looking away from all that will distract us and] focusing our eyes on Jesus, who is the Author and Perfecter of faith [the first incentive for our belief and the One who brings our faith to maturity], who for the joy [of accomplishing the goal] set before Him endured the cross, disregarding the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God [revealing His deity, His authority, and the completion of His work].
Just consider and meditate on Him who endured from sinners such bitter hostility against Himself [consider it all in comparison with your trials], so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
What is so key in this verse is where it says, ‘stripping off every unnecessary weight and the sin which so easily and cleverly entangles us’, and ‘looking away from all that will distract us’. Many of us set out to run our race and have our eyes set on Jesus, to ‘consider and meditate on Him’. But we forget that the Bible tells us that during our race, we have to actively be stripping off every unnecessary weight and sin which so easily and cleverly entangles us. Wow. So EASILY and CLEVERLY entangles us! And, we are told to look away from all that will distract us.
The Great Accuser The enemy is the great accuser and a great liar. He knows if he can distract you from who God made you to be, a mighty daughter of the king who is equipped and prepared to run the race set before you, that you will shrink back and take your eyes off of Jesus. Watch from the side lines. Watch everyone else running their race and think things like this, “Those dreams I used to have must not have been from God, I just don’t see how this could possibly happen.” Or “Wow, I thought I was called to (insert your dream here) but I’ll never be as qualified as that person is!” By declaring those lies and believing those things of yourself, you’ve just come into agreement with Satan’s accusations against you.
To understand how Satan works against God’s people, you must understand how he operates. Revelation 12:10 states the following:
“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.”
Ladies, hear this. The enemy is an accuser that will accuse you and disqualify you, even before you begin. It says he accuses us day and night! He doesn’t stop, which means we always have to be on guard of the fiery darts of lies he is sending our way. He entangles us by entangling our mind with his lies. If we bite into his lies and take our eyes off of Jesus and the authority and victory we have as daughters of the king and joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), then we began to watch the race from the sidelines. We don’t think we are qualified to join in the race. But if we recognize that the lie the enemy is feeding us are intentionally trying to get us to stay out of the race, we can learn to take those thoughts captive to Jesus! (2 Corinthians 10:5)
Colossians 2:15 says, “And having disarmed the powers and authorities [Satan’s whole evil kingdom], he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
Jesus disarmed the powers and authorities of Satan’s whole evil kingdom, his lies have no power over us if we take them captive and make them come into obedience with the power and victory of the cross!
Who are you? You must instead align your mind with the truth of the word of God, who does he say you are? You are more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37)! You are chosen (1 Peter 2:9)! You are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17)! You are his workmanship (Ephesians 2:10)! You are a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19)! You are a daughter of God (Romans 8:14)!
It is he that qualifies you for the race, not yourself. Don’t let the lies of the enemy disqualify you from even beginning the race he has set before you! It’s not by your own power that you are qualified, it’s his power (the Holy Spirit) through you (Zechariah 4:6). If you disqualify yourself you are saying his power isn’t enough to work through you. Do you really want to stand before Jesus and say that you didn’t believe his power was strong enough to work through you to bring forth your destiny?
Do you really want to stand before Jesus and say that you didn’t believe his power was strong enough to work through you to bring forth your destiny?
Seasons of Training What’s interesting and very important about Cruz Ramirez is that it’s not a bad thing that she was placed in a position as a trainer – for a season. We are to walk in our calling in confidence and humility (but not false humility), which means we need to go through seasons of training. But these seasons of training are not meant to restrain us, they are meant to train us!
Cruz had fallen into the trap that because she was placed as a trainer, that that was her identity. You see, she had forgotten the identity that her maker had given her. She was a car designed and built to be a racer, not a trainer. But instead, she lost sight of what her maker said, and she believed what everyone else said. She missed the opportunity of her assignment that was meant to prepare her. So the very assignment that was supposed to train her into strength so she would have victory and success when her opportune time came to race, tricked her into believing for much less than the ultimate destiny she was meant to have.
These seasons of training are not meant to restrain us, they are meant to train us!
You see, Cruz was strategically placed around successful race cars to help them achieve their destiny, and to learn what it was like to be a race car. She needed to be around the track so to speak. We see this many times in the Bible, the most obvious one is King David. He had literally been anointed as the next King of Israel, but it was unbeknownst to the current king of Israel, King Saul. Once anointed to be the next king, David is then positioned to serve the current king and play music for him. While doing this he “learns the ropes” and he gets an inside perspective of the life of a king.
It was training! Strengthening! David grew in strength and wisdom, but only because he submitted himself to the process. If David would have doubted God’s anointing in his life and taken his eyes off of his race, the training would have been wasted and he may have missed it and never become king. Instead, he placed his trust in God, trusted that he was called, he was positioned, and he was anointed to be the next king of Israel, no matter what his current circumstances seemed to appear in the natural! That was David’s race that was set before him! Cruz, on the other hand, had let the views and opinions of others who didn’t see her as a racer to become her identity, and she took her eyes off of her race and she believed that all she would ever be was a trainer.
The Real Reason Satan Tries to Distract You The good news for Cruz is that she crossed paths with Lightning McQueen. Lightning saw in that moment of a practice race that Cruz was really a racer, not a trainer. He recognized her true identity and purpose. When it comes time for Lightning’s race against Jackson Storm, he gets part way through the race, then he knows what he has to do, he puts Cruz in to race for him!
At first Cruz is a little uncertain, makes a few wild moves, but with Lightning’s coaching from the pit, she soon catches up to Jackson Storm. This is the key moment, she is neck and neck with him! She is racing her race! Then the unthinkable happens. Exactly what Hebrews 12:1-3 says, Jackson Storm feeds her lies that easily and cleverly entangle her mind and she is distracted.
Jackson Storm pulls up next to her, “Hey costume girl. You look the part, can’t have everyone thinking you don’t deserve to be here. They don’t need to know what you and I already do. That you can play dress up all you want, but you’ll never be one of us.”
Cruz, obviously distraught and feeling insecure, slows down. Quickly, Lightning responds from the pit, “Cruz, did you see what happened there?” “Yeah,” she replies, “he’s in my head.” “NO!” Lightning says. “Listen to me. You’ve gotten into his head. Don’t you understand?! He would never have done that if you didn’t scare him! He sees something in you that you don’t see in yourself! You made me believe it, now you got to believe it too! You are a racer! Use that!”
What is it that Lightning is telling Cruz to use? If Jackson didn’t think Cruz was a threat, he wouldn’t be wasting his time trying to tell her lies. If Satan didn’t think YOU were a threat, that your destiny was a threat, he wouldn’t waste time trying to tell YOU lies!
If Satan didn’t think YOU were a threat, that your destiny was a threat, he wouldn’t waste time trying to tell YOU lies!
Cruz realizes what Lightning says is true, and she pulls ahead, right behind Jackson, she sees her move to win the race and she pulls next to him. He responds by quickly pinning her to the wall. “You don’t belong on this track!” Jackson yells at her. Cruz, finally in full confidence, complete identity as a race car, shouts out, “YES I DO!” as she flips out from the wall and over Jackson, lands on the track, and wins the race.
Do you realize, that like Cruz, the enemy feeds you lies because you are a threat to him, and you have a mighty calling to advance the kingdom of God – to run your race set before you? You are not called to sit on the side lines!
Here is my prayer for you. That you would be so confident with your calling to run the race set before you that every time Satan tries to tell you that you don’t belong on the track, you shout out “YES I DO!” and use the sword of truth to declare who you are in Christ! Are you ready to step in? Are you ready to silence the lies, once and for all? Let me be the Lightning McQueen in your life. You, beautiful daughter. You belong in this race!
Pray with me. Father God, I don’t want to sit on the sidelines, I want to run the race you set before me! Draw me close to you and teach me to recognize the lies of the enemy. Help me recognize what isn’t your truth. Bring your living Word to life within my being, may it permeate my heart and my mind. In Jesus’ mighty name. Amen!
