His Plan Apart from Just Reading

The Bible is our compass in life, leading us to our true north and fulfillment that the world could never provide.

But you know what’s funny about that? Most biblical figures didn’t have our Bible, yet they still had a close relationship with God Almighty that allowed them to understand His plan for their lives.

Joseph did not have a Torah, let alone a Bible. He was living it! But his dreams of the future allowed him entry into his glory after much heartache and suffering.

His family scoffed at his dreams, yet secretly they believed them. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have put him in the pit and sold him off. But his father had kept the matter in his mind, since God had often intervened in his own life personally.

Reading our Bibles should be something we strive for to understand how God works and the commandments. But application and living these things out leads to the best results in our lives.

Walking with God is not about reading a book, though we can glean understanding from the smallest letters of the written Torah, Prophets, and Writings.

People today say they believe in God intellectually, but most of them don’t believe He will personally keep His promises to them on His timeline. They don’t walk with God as one would walk with a friend that they speak to.

That’s the stuff of the realm of the crazy, allegedly. Yet, our Bibles say to avoid such people, as they have a form of godliness but deny its power. I get worried when people aren’t hearing from the divine, whether in the still, small voice or weird synchronicities that can’t be explained any other way. That means you’re not walking with God as a friend to you.

This phenomenon is so prevalent even in the secular world that the field of psychology had to coin the term synchronicity to explain that which is not explainable by the material methods of man.

God rewards true faith and expectancy in the things we don’t see in our lives yet.

If God reveals you’re supposed to have a certain occupation, it might not come until your late 30s or middle 40s. It might take massive shifts in your life or on the world stage at large to be fulfilled, but that is what patience is for.

If God promises you something, it will be fulfilled, no matter what people scheme (like Joseph’s brothers, who ironically led him to the fulfillment they so wanted to avoid), or how long it takes. If your hair must be gray a bit (something happening to me as I type this) before something is fulfilled in your life, that’s okay. Those are the golden years of life in the biblical pattern.

Many modern believers don’t truly believe what they claim to hold to. They might warm a pew on Sunday, but they might not manifest their desires by asking the Almighty to intervene in their lives for His glory.

They’ll say God exists, but live as though He does not.

We can’t force people to see things the way we do, but His sheep know His voice.

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27 [ESV]).

He didn’t mean by reading your Bible. He meant His guidance in your life. You can’t possibly miss the path God has for your life. He will send you signs, and you will also be gifted in certain areas. Sometimes, we’ll have more than one purpose. David was a military man, a poet, a musician, and a king.

Some of us may have only a single purpose. But Yahweh gets the glory, regardless.

Wait patiently for His plans for your life. Often, you’ll realize you’re getting closer to fulfillment when you understand things you may not have foreseen fifteen years ago. It is now the year 2026, and the world is in turmoil (WW3 is on the horizon, for example), but could we have seen that back in 2013? Not necessarily.

Things might make more sense as time passes.

To use Joseph as an example one more time, he saw the result, but not how long or what it would take to get him there. His own family hated him. He was placed in the pit, falsely accused and jailed, and then vindicated after 22 years. His brothers were terrified that Joseph’s dream had come true when he revealed himself.

God’s word will always be fulfilled if you trust His plan for your life. But it might not be as soon as you had thought. Or it might come sooner than you think.

Whichever of those notions is true, you must follow Yahweh and not turn to the right or to the left.

May God fulfill His plan for your life as you walk in shalom with Him as your guide.