Rhema Ehiemere - Please Close The Box

Tell your neighbor, «Close the box, close the box!» I’m going to give you seven words that changed my life, and I hope will change your life too: seven words that I believe can alter the course of your life. These seven words might not be as profound, philosophical, deep, or insightful as some of the posts you put on social media, but I bet if you understand the importance and significance of these seven words, they can change the way you talk. They would change the way you live, and it would change the trajectory of your life. If you can grasp these seven words, they will transform how you deal with rejection. If you can understand these seven words, it will change how you cope with criticism. If you can understand these seven words, it would modify the way you relate to your ex. Just flew over some people’s heads—the way you manage betrayal, how you show up at work. These seven words changed my life. And let me just warn you, I don’t expect you to shout because it probably is so simple. Are you ready? Oh no, you’re not ready! Can you help me online? Can you guess? Just put something online, and I’m gonna know by faith that you put something out there because I need some help in here. These seven words—are you ready? Okay, okay, okay, here you go: these are the seven words: «God has a plan for your life.» If I said, «God is about to promote you, ” or „God is about to bless you, ” somebody would say you would be running down the aisle. But what you don’t know is that all of that is included in God’s plan. The Bible is a book of plans. Talk to me: Jeremiah 29:11, „For I know the plans I have for you.“ Listen, God is not planning for you; God is not working on a plan for you—that would suggest that He’s still figuring it out. I said, „God has a plan for you,“ which means your future is God’s past. Before you had a problem, God was the solution. Before you had a question, God was the answer. Come here, Jeremiah: „Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; I ordained you as a prophet to the nations.“ Before your life started, God finished it. But the challenge, Randy, the challenge is that we find ourselves, when we deal with setbacks, when we’re struggling and facing various situations, wondering if God’s plan is still working. I feel it. When we go through storms in life, we ask ourselves, „Is God’s plan still working?“ And taking it a step further, we try to figure out a plan for what God originally planned in the first place. Talk to me, Abraham! God told you you would have a son with Sarah, yet you feel like God has been delaying His plan, so you try to devise a plan around God’s own plan. You go ahead and sleep with Hagar, and now we have a situation called Ishmael. Don’t look at me, church, like you’ve never tried to figure out a plan around God’s own plan. Come on, I know you’ve tried! Every night, there’s a little Abraham in every one of us! But I want to talk to the sisters here: you’ve been trying to fast-track the relationship because he is dragging his feet. What you don’t know is this is God’s way of delaying the process because He wants you to see all the red flags. Oh, I’m coming for you! I want to talk to you today because there’s somebody online watching, and you are wondering why HR ghosted you. You are ready to apply, in fact, you have been given the job already, and you’re wondering why it just went cold. They just went silent, they ghosted you, and they are no longer responding. Let me tell you what is happening: God is making sure He gets the wrong people out before He brings you in! So here you are, trying to send emails, and there’s no response. God says, „Relax! Don’t try to have a plan.“ All right, I’m going to talk to that couple who was about to buy a house. You’ve been trying to buy that house, and they have been quoting a price that is way beyond your budget. God says, „Relax! I’m about to move them to another city, so you will have no option but to drop the price for you, and you can get the house.“ I’m trying to tell you that God has a plan for your life! The reason your plan is not working is that you’re trying to make a plan for what God already planned in the first place. You cannot hear me! You cannot devise a plan around God’s plan and expect it to go as planned. You cannot make a plan. I’m repeating it for those at the back: you cannot make a plan around God’s plan and still expect it to go as planned. You cannot manipulate God’s plan; you can only collaborate with God’s plan. That’s why the Bible says, „Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.“ So, learn one of the traps of the enemy, church: it’s this—it causes you to believe that just because nothing is happening in your life physically or visibly, that means nothing is happening at all.