If you haven’t read my earlier posts you missed the story about the flood!  You may or may not want to read it because it wasn’t just water and some people just don’t like the thought of those things.  This whole process has been very interesting to me from start to finish.  This week we got to go shopping and replace most of the things that were lost.  If you read my early post there was quite a list, and though we have not replaced all of it, we have replaced the largest pieces.  It was fun to go shopping, to know we could simply walk into a store, choose a new bed, a new table, a new hutch, and replace what was lost.

Through this process I realized that our insurance has been rather amazing to us.  We pay them every month for the assurance that one day if something were to happen then they would swoop in and take care of us.  We pay them for the promise and we trust they will fulfill it when the need arises.  We pay them to keep a promise to us later.  They have kept that promise to us.  Not everything we own is replaceable though.  For instance if my box of photographs for which only one copy exists had been destroyed we would not get them back, they don’t fall under that promise because there is no back up plan for those things.

So then I started to think.  God makes promises to us.  There is a big difference here though-we never had to pay Him to make those promises to us!  Amazing isn’t it.  Quite the opposite really, He made those promises not only without us doing anything-He made them when we didn’t even deserve it.  Then I thought to myself, there is also no back up plan, His promises are the only plan He has made.  He did that for a reason.  He wants us to trust His plan.

That plan is Christ and what He did for us on the cross.  When we trust in that plan we are trusting in the promises God has made to us and trusting that He will fulfill the promises He made to us.  There is no back up plan.  So I thought further.  There is no other plan for what is lost.  Like those pictures those who are lost need a plan with promises that will be fulfilled that they can trust in to save them from being lost.  Those pictures, nothing can be done about them.  Those who don’t know about Gods plan, that, something can be be about.  The question to ask yourself is are you counting on some kind of back up plan?  No back up plan can replace Gods plan.

I have been through quite a journey in the past 3 1/2 years.  In the fall of 2005  I started a Rocky Road that took me on an unpredictable medical path.    He brought me to live in a place I would not have chosen on my own, and I was forced to give up my own independence.  Years ago I chose my online nick race_12_1 based on the scripture Hebrews 12:1-2.  Now I look at another scripture and remember I need to keep moving in my race, continue pressing on toward my prize.

Philippians 3:12-14 says “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 3:12-14 NIV)

I need to remember that what has happend to me in the past 3 1/2 years is only part of what God has in store for me.  It is only a portion of the race He has me on to mold me into the person He intends me to be.  His plan is to mold me into the likeness of Him (Rom 8:29).  Eventually when I complete my race, reach the goal, and win the prize, I will be completly molded into that likeness.  For now I press on in my race knowing that God is still molding me in this next part of the race.  I look forward with excitement to whatever He is going to do next, because I know that Gods plans are greater then whatever I could come up with on my own!