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Jeremiah 29:11 proclaims God's gracious desire to bless His people with His perfect plan for their lives. However, Romans 8:28 states that for us to receive His good, we must love Him and obey His calling for us. Sadly, because many believers instead live for themselves according to their own plans, they miss God's best for them.
A vivid Scriptural example of this is Samson. Reading Judges 13 reveals God's intimate involvement in his life and intense desire to bless him with His perfect plan. For example, God selected Samson's barren mother to miraculously conceive and deliver him. Furthermore, unlike Israel's other judges, God called Samson before his birth, did so through a Christophany, and set him apart through the Nazarite vow. In addition, Samson was notably blessed by God while growing up and received the Holy Spirit's power before becoming Israel's judge. Through richly blessing Samson with a supernatural birth and high calling, God made His desire for Samson to follow His perfect plan immensely clear.
Unfortunately, Judges 14-16 reveal Samson rebelliously chose to follow his own self-centered plans. For example, instead of waiting on God to satisfy his need for a wife, Samson fornicated with and married pagan women. Furthermore, he carelessly violated his Nazarite vow by eating honey from a dead lion and allowing his hair to be cut. In addition, he allowed his anger to boil over into murderous vengeance. Despite this, Judges 14:4 reveals that God, in His permissive will, used Samson's fleshly pursuits and behavior to exact His judgment on the Philistines. Nevertheless, in His perfect justice, God did not allow Samson's sins to go unpunished. Because Samson refused to make room in his heart for God, he missed many of His blessings and ended his life as a blinded slave to his enemies. Samson's account reveals that while God has a perfect plan for us, He does not override our free will, thus requiring us to willfully devote ourselves to Him to receive His best.
Sadly, many believers follow Samson's lead because they do not make room for Jesus in their lives. For example, like the inn in Luke 2:7 that had no room for the Son of God, our hearts crowd out Christ with our own desires and ideas. Also, like Martha in Luke 10:38-40, our minds are so distracted with our work and plans that we sacrifice building the intimate relationship with Christ that He deeply yearns for. In addition, like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, we abandon God's blessings to hopelessly chase the things of this world, only to find how vain, temporal, and unsatisfying they are in the end. By leaving no room for Jesus in our lives, we rob ourselves of the blessed life and callings He desires to give us.
Thankfully, Scripture reveals how to give Christ room in our lives. First, we must understand that God owns our lives, not us. Not only did He create us, but, as 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 state, our lives are not our own because they were bought with the price of Jesus' life for our salvation. Next, not only does Jesus own our lives, but also it is His life that we live. As Galatians 2:20 proclaims, our old life in the flesh was crucified with Christ on the Cross, which allows Him to impart His life in our regenerated spirits upon receiving His salvation (Tit. 3:5). Finally, because Jesus gave everything to give us His life that He now owns, He now asks that we surrender it to Him. This is why Romans 12:1 calls us to present ourselves to Him as living sacrifices, which we do by continually surrendering everything we do, say, and think to glorify Him and declare His salvation to others. By shaping our lives around these truths through the Holy Spirit's mental renewal, we not only make room in our lives for Christ but also give Him rightful rule over them.
While God desperately yearns to richly bless us with His perfect plan for our lives, He gives us the free will to choose whether to follow Him or our own self-centered plans. As Samson learned the hard way, the latter only brings temporal pleasure and gain that soon gives way to immense suffering and lasting consequences. Thankfully, by surrendering everything of ourselves to Christ because He owns our lives and it is His life we live, the Holy Spirit can then guide us to receive the abundant blessings of our Father's best for us.
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