Fingerprints

I've been reading the book of Galatians this past month and Chapter 4 has really stood out to me. In it, it talks about Abraham and his two sons. One of those being the son that was born by his slave wife and the other from his freeborn wife. Verse 23 hit me in a way that I had never thought of before. It talks of how his slave born son was a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God's promise, and how his son born from his freeborn wife was God's own fulfillment of his promise. It just made me think about how there can be such a difference between a human attempt of something and God's own fulfillment. I don't want to have anything that is born of my own human attempt to bring about God's promises and plans for my life. Yet it's so easy to do when you start to look at things through your own thinking and not by faith. It's easy to make decisions and get ahead of yourself when you're excited about something or when your afraid or simply because you haven't taken the time to pray about something and so you act out on your own reasoning. I would imagine that that was the case for Abraham and Sarah. Through their eyes they believed that it would be impossible for God to fulfill his promise through them, so they came up with their own plan. I think for myself I like to try and figure everything out a head of time, my own life plans and possibilities, but I'm realizing that I have to be patient and that the only place to be is right where God has asked me to be at that very instant. When we were in Africa we talked a lot about God 'messing up' our dreams and how to truly serve him we have to let him lead us even when that mean letting him take what we hold dearest to our hearts and what we have planned for our selves. It's only then that he can truly lead us and we can learn to trust him. When I look back over my life I want to be able to see HIS fingerprints all over it, not my own.

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not on your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:5-6