Seeing the Bigger Picture for Your Life and Future
When I graduated from college I thought I was going to be an actress. I was going to live in L.A. or New York and work and work until I got a half decent part on a T.V. show or did some theater gigs here and there and that was it. That was my big plan. Then on an unpredictable extended trip to Barcelona one summer, God gave me a whisper, a glimmer of His plan for my future. It completely blew my vision for my life to shame; for the first time I was seeing the bigger picture for my life. It was far different from what I wanted to do. However, it was something big, something that had purpose that gave my life meaning. Ultimately it served The Kingdom and God’s great glory.
Related Post: When God Interrupts Your Plans
Although I didn’t understand it then, something told me to move home, back to Miami. I then spent the next several seasons of my life learning to listen to God. I allowed myself to be painfully pruned and shown what it was to live a Godly life. During this time I fell back into old ways and habits and yet God still was faithful. He removed the parts of my life that were harmful and replaced them with good Godly people. Many were the times the enemy tried to tell me I wasn’t enough. But God would always remind me of the whisper he had given me.
God promised to be faithful to me if I remained faithful to Him.
After a few years of working towards the grand vision God had placed over my life. I decided I needed more training, more knowledge, because although I had shown myself a great deal of the skillset that I needed. I always felt like it wasn’t enough. So I applied to go back to school, and I got in. I thought surely this is the go ahead from God, surely this must be right. For months after that I prayed, relentlessly, on my knees, crying, expecting, hoping and waiting for the day to come for God to make everything fall into place.
I asked God, pleaded with him, to give me a clear answer about all of this and God did.
While I was visiting a friend’s church for a weekend service and the pastor said on stage, "God is telling you, 'You don’t need to go to school for what He’s called you to do.'" At that moment, I couldn’t believe it. I thought surely that wasn’t for me, that wasn’t my word. So I held my breath for the weekend and when the deadline for school rolled around the following week, nothing happened and my world fell apart.I was angry, furious, and I felt cheated and lead astray. It felt like God had purposefully lied to me. I couldn’t deal with all of the feelings that were coming up. So I stayed silent. Thinking what I could’ve done. Then on a rainy car ride home one afternoon, I spoke. I shouted really, I told God everything that I was feeling and how hurt I was. And you know what? God spoke back. He whispered to me “How much greater will your testimony be, when you can say you accomplished what I’ve shown you without any qualifications?” I started crying, because I thought, God all this time I’d been saying may my will over my life be in accordance with yours, but I hadn’t meant it.
This when I finally started seeing the bigger picture.
I had gotten hung up on the tiny details of how I thought I could accomplish this dream for my life. I’d forgotten that God was the only one who truly could see the big picture. God hadn’t shown me what my life was meant to be so that I could go and make it happen for myself. God showed me the glimpse of what my life could be so that I could allow Him to do a great work in me.I feel like many times we forget that. It’s not about ‘my will’ but rather ‘Thy will’. When we truly allow ourselves to be used and guided by God that’s when we too can begin to see the bigger picture.