Not as man wills

Text: Romans 9: 16
There is no gainsaying the fact that God is all in all. He is the Omnipotent, the Omniscient and the Omnipresent. It is apparent from the understanding of who God is that there is nothing that can happen without Him knowing about it or without His approval. God makes things happen at His own time and pace. No one has control over Him and no one has what it takes to dictate to Him.

Man is fully under the control of God and cannot in any way do anything of his own. No wonder the Psalmist made it abundantly clear that ‘commit your ways into God’s hands, trust in Him also and He shall do it,’ Psalm 37: 5. As a man, you may have plans for great achievements, but if your plans are not backed by God, there is nothing you can make out of them. Only God has the final say.

Quite a number of people are going through difficult times in their personal lives, finances, businesses and marriages; just because they fail to carry God along, when they started out. Before you embark on anything in life, you need to get God’s approval. If God does not approve of it, you are going to end up a failure. Did you seek God’s approval before you got married to that man or woman, who is now making life difficult for you? Was God in the know of that business that is heading for the rocks now from the beginning? The truth is aptly stated in Psalm 33: 16, 17 that ‘No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength…’ In a nutshell, no man can prevail by his own strength!

Sincerely, it is not all about you, but about God, Who has power over all things. That is exactly the point Paul the Apostle was trying to emphasise in our text, when he said, ‘It is not unto him who wills or of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy,’ Romans 9: 16. You may have good intentions about a particular project of your life and from human point of view everything may seem appropriate, but have you sought God’s position about it? It has to be what God wants, not what you want. That is where many people miss it in life. They are always thinking about what they want and not what God has in mind. For anyone to achieve anything worthwhile in life, you must always ask God what He wants from you and how He wants you to go about it.

That is why we are told not to lean on our own understanding, but to acknowledge God in all that we do, Proverbs 3: 5. Brethren, I charge you to always commit all that you do henceforth into God’s hands, even before you embark on it. Don’t bring God in after you have started. Make sure He is there, when you are starting out. It is through Him you can achieve success beyond your understanding. Give Him a chance from now on, and your story will change for good.