God’s Guidance Rarely Looks Like the Plan You Imagined
Some time ago, I was so frustrated because I got tired of not understanding what God was doing in my life. I was so frustrated and annoyed that I told people to stop asking me about any project they see me embarking on. I’m sure they thought I was exhibiting irrational behaviors. Even I thought I was been erratic. “Lord, what are you doing with me?” I often asked Him. “I don’t understand anymore.”
The hardest instruction He gave me was asking me to leave my church where I have worshipped for the past 15 years. Back story, I grew up in the Catholic church, and when I decided to leave the Catholic church, that was the church my husband and I started going to. In fact, we got married at that church, had our two girls there, I got baptized there and so many other milestones in our lives happened there. I had served in almost every department in the church. And my last role was serving as one of the protocol team of the pastors. The church was a small church so we were all like family there. The church was our family. The pastor and His wife were wonderful, the unadulterated word of God was preached there, prayer was prioritized. The church has been there a lot for my family and I through some dark times in our lives.
But about a year before I finally left, I started having an uncomfortable feeling and nudging to leave. However, I pushed it aside because it truly sounded like the enemy. I just couldn’t understand why God would lead me this way. It seemed contrary to God’s ways even though I have seen over and over in scripture how God leads His people. To cut long story short, when word got out that my family and I left the church, most people thought I had basically lost my mind and that it wasn’t God that I heard, including some of my family members. That’s a story for another day.
As much as people talked, there was a check in my spirit that the decision we made was not a carnal decision. After all, who wants to have people questioning their every decision and thinking you are being irrational? But because I have read the word, and I know how God leads me, it’s often in unconventional ways, I knew that no matter what, I have to obey God. It doesn’t matter what people will say about me, my goal is to please one person only and that is God. I have learned to rely on the word of God. Once He speaks to me through His word, every other voice that speaks is too late. His word is final in my life.
And then there is the business, and the ministry, and the other things that God has assigned me to do. One thing on the heels of the other. And though I’m obeying, yet I haven’t seen the fruit of it, well, monetary fruit of it and it always almost want to make me doubt that it is God I heard, but again, His word confirms it and His Spirit inside of me bears witness time and time again. You know in the Christian circle, we have been made to believe that if we are not making money or becoming rich or wealthy from the assignment God gave us, then it must not be God. Unfortunately, many of us have heard this for years and believed it that it has now become a stronghold in our minds. And God has to take us through a process to break.
Just now as I wrote that last statement down, I just got a revelation that this is exactly what God is doing in my life. He is taking me through the process to break that stronghold from my mind. So that my sense of worth isn’t in the amount of money I make but rather in the One who called me to that assignment. He wants to make me be ok with the fact that I may never make money out of those things, and if that is the case, I should be ok with it as well. It reminds me of what the Apostle Paul said, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21).
People will try to sway you out of God’s command because they think God only works one way but clearly God can work in any way He chooses. 2 Kings 3:19 NLT says, You will conquer the best of their towns, even the fortified ones. You will cut down all their good trees, stop up all their springs, and ruin all their good land with stones.” Clearly, God gave them instructions to cut down all of their enemies’ good trees after they won the victory. But if we recall in Deuteronomy 20:19, the NIV says, “When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees people, that you should besiege them? 20 However, you may cut down trees that you know are not fruit trees and use them to build siege works until the city at war with you falls.”
NLT says, “When you are attacking a town and the war drags on, you must not cut down the trees with your axes. You may eat the fruit, but do not cut down the trees. Are the trees your enemies, that you should attack them? 20 You may only cut down trees that you know are not valuable for food. Use them to make the equipment you need to attack the enemy town until it falls.”
What if the Israelites said to themselves, well, the God we know gave our forefather the command not to cut down the good trees, well now, He is saying we should cut down the good tree, then this must not be God. God will not lead us this way. If they had done that, they would have been operating in disobedience.
There was also Moses whom God told to speak to the brook but instead He struck it perhaps in anger and also perhaps because that is how God had told him to do in the past.
But if we remember David, the man after God’s own heart, the man who was beyond His years in understanding of God. The first time he went to war with the Philistines, he asked God if he should pursue, and God said yes. And the second time around, same or similar scenario, he didn’t just assume the way God works, instead He went back and asked God if he should pursue and this time around, God said no and instead gave him a different strategy. Imagine if people talked him out of what he heard. What if they told him that God does not “change” His mind or that God only leads a certain way etc. The One who gave you the previous rule can give you another seemingly opposite rule – obey. You may have questions in your heart, and you can ask God about it, but first obey anyway. It may be confusing to you and make no sense but obey anyway.
In this 2026, God is going to lead you in unconventional ways. It is important that you hear God for yourself and obey His command to you. Knowing how God speaks to you and leads you is imperative in this new year. Don’t put God in a box. Don’t limit Him to your own understanding. Don’t stay stuck in what was said or done before. Keep in step with what God is doing now. Listen and obey.
There are many things God is going to whisper to you in the secret place and assign you to do publicly. This year, there are certain relationships God is going to ask you to walk away from not necessarily because they are bad but because He is God and He knows the plans He has for you. This year, there are places God is going to call you to, assignments He is going to entrust to you, lives He is going to call you to impact, but you must be ready to obey despite oppositions from people.
There will be naysayers. There will be those who think you are making a big mistake. There will be those who think you are not being productive. But guess what, there will be others who are cheering you on. And the best part, heaven is cheering you on and the Godhead is backing you up.
So, in this 2026 don’t be afraid to move. Move with boldness. Move with confidence. Take the leap of faith and trust God. Remember that according to Jeremiah 29:11, God has good plans for you. The bible also says that the things God wants to do in you and through you, eyes have not seen, ears have not heard. So, trust yourself and trust God.
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