{"id":18336,"date":"2023-07-11T04:50:01","date_gmt":"2023-07-11T09:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=18336"},"modified":"2023-07-11T04:50:05","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T09:50:05","slug":"navigating-this-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=18336","title":{"rendered":"Navigating this Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This is my sweet granddaughter, who has been here with me for the last few days. We did girl stuff together and on Sunday, enjoyed family stuff with Uncle Ryan and cousin, Karlei. Precious time with my girl. Alexia will be leaving in a few weeks for Nashville where she will be attending Legacy School of Ministry. Oh the plans God has for her!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She lived alone when her mom and dad moved to their acreage in East Texas. She had an apartment of her own, a great job, hung out with wonderful friends and certainly proved she was responsible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, after a while, she missed her family and moved to the ranch and has successfully been working for her parents in their ministry and business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I enjoy encouraging her and reminding her of all the potential that lies within her and, with God\u2019s help, will scale every mountain and charge forward in every terrain that lies before her. I speak to her about the plans God has for her \u2013 plans to prosper her, and not harm her, plans for a future packed full of amazing possibilities. Sounds like Jeremiah 29:11, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Alexia-Uncle-Ron-Nana-Karlie.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18341\" width=\"515\" height=\"386\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Alexia-Uncle-Ron-Nana-Karlie.jpg 960w, https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Alexia-Uncle-Ron-Nana-Karlie-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Alexia-Uncle-Ron-Nana-Karlie-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Alexia-Uncle-Ron-Nana-Karlie-120x90.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 515px) 100vw, 515px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s what we should always be saying to our youth who are wondering about what the future holds. And that is what we should be speaking into anyone who is in a place of decision-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s the thing about life. It is NOT a series of random, freak accidents. Life is not totally unplanned. Life is not without meaning. God, our loving Father, knows what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God is weaving the tapestry of our lives, and it includes light, pastel threads and interweaved are dark threads. There are happy and sad times that produce richness and texture and color. Nothing can come into the life of a child of God without God\u2019s permission. Everything is Father filtered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m not saying that everything that happens to us in life is God\u2019s perfect will. If we go out and sin, that\u2019s not God\u2019s will. If somebody sins against us, that\u2019s not God\u2019s perfect will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But God does have a permissive will. If I go out and overeat, I pay the consequences. If I don\u2019t get enough sleep, I reap the harvest of weariness. God does not cause evil, and God does not cause suffering. But He does allow those things because they have a purpose. God permits them, and then He uses them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God is an expert at bringing good out of bad. He could have kept the Apostle Paul out of prison in Philippi, but instead He let Paul go to prison, and the jailer became a believer as a result. God could have kept Jesus from the cross, but He let Him go. He let his own Son suffer and die. Did God bring any good out of that? GOOD is an understatement!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God turns crucifixions into resurrections. The things we most wish were removed from our lives are often the very things that God uses to shape us and make us into the believer He wants us to be. He wants to use our problems for good in our lives. There\u2019s something more important than our pain. It is what we are learning from that pain. God is in control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So how can we respond to challenging situations? Paul says, \u201cNever give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won\u2019t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!\u201d (2 Corinthians 4:16-17)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is my sweet granddaughter, who has been here with me for the last few days. We did girl stuff together and on Sunday, enjoyed family stuff with Uncle Ryan and cousin, Karlei. Precious time with my girl. Alexia will be leaving in a few weeks for Nashville where she will be attending Legacy School&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27277,27276],"tags":[14043,1210,1769,27271,1392,27273,4885,40,271,27269,2633,20507,27274,27270,1514,7760,20672,27272],"class_list":["post-18336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legacy-school-of-ministry","category-nashville","tag-alexia","tag-blog","tag-christian","tag-decision-making-2","tag-facebook","tag-father-filtered","tag-granddaughter","tag-inspiration","tag-jeremiah-2911","tag-legacy-school-of-ministry","tag-mountain","tag-navigating","tag-permissive-will","tag-plans-god-has","tag-possibilities","tag-potential","tag-terrain","tag-weaving-the-tapestry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18348,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18336\/revisions\/18348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}