This week our inspiration comes from a prayer chorus I sang many years ago in the Salvation Army.
Just where He needs me, My Lord has placed me
When we first find God, it is difficult for us to understand that He sees our whole life mapped out and He will place us where we can do His will.
It is better we don’t know what His plans for us are. If you’d told a Salvation Army boy from the Rhondda Valley that he would end up in the Church of Ireland in County Down, frankly, he would have been hesitant, he may have even done a Jonah and gone in the opposite direction!
We all have ‘baggage’ from our pasts which can make us think we are too flawed for the Lord to use us, but that just isn’t true. The bible is full of ‘flawed’ characters eventually doing what God planned for them.
There was Saul who persecuted Christians before becoming Paul, the man charged with brining the Good News of Jesus to us non-Jews. Then there is David an immoral man who ordered a man to be killed yet he became King and ruled over the golden years of Israel and Judah, who wrote many of the psalms.
Moses killed a man and disobeyed God’s command, but God showed him forgiveness and Moses became the law giver, the leader of God’s people. Finally, there was Peter who denied Jesus three time before the cock crowed yet became one of the major apostles to spread the gospel.
Whatever we have done in life pales into insignificance against some of these major people in the bible. yet God found a way to do His will through them and He will through you. They all realised they had done wrong and asked God for forgiveness and for guidance to understand what He wanted them to do, and great things happened.
God has plans for you, yes YOU!. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” Jeremiah 29:11. If we ask God for forgiveness, he will give it. 1 John 1:9 tells us “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins.” Finally, ask God for guidance and as Jesus says in Matthew 7:7 “it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” The opportunities to do the will of God will be there for you, whatever your past.
By asking for forgiveness and direction we can all become the people God wants us to be, with our past forgiven.
The end of the prayer chorus talks about how our relationship with God will build:
And since He found me, by love He’s bound me
To serve Him joyfully!
As I was concluding writing this thought I glanced at my quote of the day “God uses unlikely fighters to face unbeatable giants, so He can accomplish an unimaginable victory.” Greg Stier
What is God wanting you to do for Him? Go on, ask Him!