“This Isn’t What I Pictured” - Love Your Life (Even When You Don’t Like It All the Time)

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.” (Genesis 50:20, NLT)

“Get all the advice and instruction you can, so you will be wise the rest of your life.” (Proverbs 19:21, NLT)

“Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10, NLT)

“’My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the LORD. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.’” (Isaiah 55:8-9, NLT)

Myth: If life doesn’t look how I imagined, I must have done something wrong.
Truth: Loving your life means learning to love the unexpected version too.

You know that moment when you look around at the dishes, the silence, the traffic, the diagnosis and quietly wonder, Hold on . . . Is this really my life?

Whether it’s the job that turned into a dead dream, the marriage that feels more like a logistic roommate situation than a romance, or the “meantime” that you’re in the middle of as you wait for the “thing” your mind is thinking of at this moment. Many of us live in a version of life we didn’t picture. And perhaps, somewhere deeply honest in our gut, we wonder if it’s our fault.

Did I miss it? Did I mess it up? Did God forget about me?

One of my favorite things about the Bible is that it is consistent and tells us exactly who God is, and here is what I know to be true: God is more interested in our “real” than our “ideal,” and He does His best work with our honesty.

What I also know to be true is this: We are not powerful enough to mess up God’s plan for our life. Our fragile eraser cannot undo the permanent marker autograph His sovereignty has on our life.

Think of Joseph: His life looked nothing like the dreams he had, I’m certain. From betrayal to prison, none of it felt like “God’s best” in the moment. And yet God was not only with Joseph in the pit, but He was positioning him through it (see Genesis 50:20). Or think about Moses for a moment, who fled (with a group of people following him, no less) into the wilderness thinking his purpose had expired and his “best life” was back in Egypt only to hear God’s voice in a burning bush (see Exodus 3).

Your current life might not be what you pictured, but it is the one God can use to bring about something holy. Nothing is “too unique” or “too far gone” for His redemption, reconciliation, and restoration. Remember this truth today: He doesn’t need a perfect path. The gift of walking with Him is not a “likable life;” it’s His presence along the way.

You can love a life that includes grief. You can love a life that doesn’t meet your expectations. You can love a life that’s full of waiting.

Because Immanuel, God with us, is right here with you too.

Here are some questions to ponder:

• Where in your life are you grieving the difference between what you pictured and what is?
• Ask God: “What are You doing here that I couldn’t have experienced there?”
• What would change if you stopped trying to go back and instead chose to be fully in this moment?