When God Disrupts Our Plans

Proverbs 19:21 says, “You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.”

I’m a planner at heart; it’s just part of my nature. I love to plan ahead, dream about the future, and consider what steps I can take to make those dreams a reality.

When I was young, I had a plan. I would marry Mr. Right, pursue a fulfilling career, have children, and serve God in some way. What I hadn’t planned for was the heartache that lay ahead as Denis and I entered a journey of infertility, failed treatments, and the even greater anguish of a failed adoption.

My plans were bitterly disrupted by seven years of trying to build our family. At the time, I saw those years as a long season of being held back from part of the life I had dreamed about. But looking back, I can see that God was using that season to form me, shape me spiritually, and write my story in ways I never could have planned for myself.

Before our season of infertility and loss, I would have considered myself a patient person with a deep faith and a strong anchor of hope in Christ. But now, on the other side of that season, I can see how God deepened and strengthened my faith in ways I otherwise might have completely missed. And ultimately, that season led us to the adoption of our dear daughter—someone I now cannot imagine not being her mom.

When I reflect on this Scripture in my day-to-day life, I’m often tempted to create my own plans and then ask God to come alongside them and bless them, rather than seeking His guidance and leading first.

Yet when I look back at the ways God has answered my prayers, solved my concerns, and worked through circumstances I couldn’t understand, His answers have so often been far better than anything I could have imagined for myself.

God’s purposes prevailing in my life are an anchor.

I’m so thankful to serve a God who wants to hear my plans and cares deeply about the desires of my heart, but who also isn’t afraid to disrupt those plans when His purposes are greater. He can be trusted—even when I don’t understand what He is doing.

Because He writes the best stories.