God has a good plan for your life, despite what things may look like right now.

I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve been worried about what the future holds.

When I was reading The Bible the other day, God showed me that we don’t need to worry or be in fear over our future.

By applying God’s promises to our every day life, we put our faith in God and trust Him with our future.

There are five simple steps to doing this:

1) Notice how you are feeling (worried, anxious, fearful etc).  Ask yourself what you have been thinking about.  This is what usually causes our negative feelings and can lead to depression and anxiety.  Write this down or type it up on the computer so you can refer back to it later.

2) Remind yourself of 2 Corinthians 10:5 from the Bible “we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ”.

In practical terms, this means you take all of your fearful, worried, insecure thoughts (and any other negative thoughts) and choose to reject those thoughts.

Choose, instead to focus on what God says in His Word and believe God’s Word instead of your own thoughts.

3) Look up Bible promises that are relevant to what you are thinking and feeling or whatever type of problem you are facing. Write them down.  Have them handy so you can read them frequently. Choose to believe God’s promises.

4) Ask God to speak to you through His promises.  Write down any ‘impressions’ you get – this is often God speaking to you.

5) Meditate on these promises day and night.  That means to read them, think about them, quote them in your prayers to God – literally be “mindful” of them any time you start to lose your sense of peace.

Continue to choose to trust God no matter how things look right now.
God is faithful.

I’ll give you an example.

As I said above, recently, I started to worry about my future.

I am just in the beginning stages of trying to build an online ministry through blog posts and You Tube videos.  This includes a section on my website that contains my favourite Bible promises.

While I was looking through Pinterest the other day, I found a site that has the most amazing, beautifully designed Bible promises and You Tube videos.  The person who has designed them has such a gift.  They are so creative – much more so than me.

This left me feeling discouraged and unsure of what I should do

For a moment, I considered trying to create something similar to the other website, but it would have taken me months and I couldn’t do it as well as they had.

Then I remembered the five steps above and began to apply them.

I started looking up Bible texts that were relevant to my future and God’s guidance.

I found scripture after scripture where God promises to lead us and guide us.

As I found them and typed them up, I started to become more hopeful and I once again, felt a sense of peace about my future and the direction I should take.

I’ll walk you through the five steps and show you how God spoke to me and brought me comfort and hope and how God will do this for you too.

Step 1 – Notice how you are feeling and ask yourself what you have been thinking about

I was feeling discouraged about my ideas and my ability and uncertain about which direction to take.  I knew that if I continued to dwell on these discouraged, negative thoughts, I would end up depressed.

I was comparing myself to others (big mistake!!!).  I did not feel as creative as they were. 

I am just at the beginning of my journey to build a ministry and an online presence. 

Sometimes it’s hard to keep going when no-one knows you; hardly anyone (except maybe your parents!) are reading your blog and only a handful of people are watching your You Tube videos.

I was wondering whether I should continue to create Bible Promises for my website when others had already done that – and better than I could do it!

Once again, I was unsure of which direction to head.  I started to doubt everything!

Step 2 – I reminded myself of 2 Corinthians 10:5 to “take every thought captive” and made a deliberate choice to replace my negative, discouraged thoughts with the promises in God’s Word.

Step 3 – I started looking up Bible texts about God’s guidance and about the future.

This is so easy to do these days.  I just went to my favourite online Bible resource called Bible Gateway and started doing a word search on ‘Guide‘ and ‘Future‘.

I also made a deliberate choice to believe the promises of God.

I asked God to speak to me through His Word and I wrote down any ‘impressions’ I noted as I read.  This is often God speaking to you.

The more I read, the more encouraged I felt!!

I started with Jeremiah 29:11 as this is an all time favourite and guaranteed to encourage me.

When I typed the word ‘future’ into Bible Gateway, a great verse that I have never heard before popped up.  Job 8:7 “Your beginnings will seem humble, so great will your future be”.

What a great verse!

So this tells me that God has a good plan for me, even if it is not 100% clear to me right now. I know the general direction.  I am not sure about all the specifics, but I do know enough to keep going (writing blog posts, making You Tube videos about my life experiences and God’s faithfulness). I was starting to feel encouraged already!

The next verse was Psalm 37:37 “A future awaits those who seek peace.”

If there is one thing I am – it’s a “Peace Maker”.  I always seek to be a peaceful person and to have peaceful relationships, so I knew I could claim this promise for myself.

I went on to read the next verse.

Amen! Another promise that I have a good future.”

The next verse was similar, Proverbs 24:14 “Know also that Wisdom is like honey for you; if you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.”

I do have a genuine desire to seek God’s Wisdom.  Therefore there is a future hope for me. 
My hope will not be cut off.

Next, another favourite.  We can claim this promise for anything. 

God promises that if I call on him and ask him what I should do, He will answer me.

I actually already had this Bible verse typed up, so it was easy to look it up. 

This shows the value in spending time reading God’s Word on a regular basis and typing up favourite Bible promises as you find them (or having a Bible Promise book or a favourite website you can look up).  This is precisely why I want my favourite Bible promises to feature on my website – I want the promises of God quickly available to anyone, any time they need it.  

Having easy access to the promises of God is life saving because when you are feeling down, you don’t always feel like reading the Bible.  You might just choose to curl up in bed instead.

But when you already have these special promises at hand, it takes no effort to look them up and read them again and it starts to bring comfort immediately.

Next, I found another favourite.

This promises that even though I don’t have a really clear picture of my online ministry, He is always with me and will never leave me.  This comforts me.  God is with me while we figure this out together.

Next I typed in the word ‘guide’ into Bible Gateway and these Bible texts came up.

Psalm 23:3 “He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths, for His Name’s sake.

Psalm 25:5 “Guide me in Your Truth and teach me, for You are God my Saviour, and my hope is in you all day long”.

Psalm 31:3 “Since You are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of Your Name, lead me and guide me”.

Psalm 48:14 “For this God is our God forever and ever; He will be our guide, even to the end”.

Psalm 73:24 “You guide me with Your counsel and afterwards You will take me into glory”.

Psalm 78:53 “He guided them safely, so they were unafraid; but the sea engulfed their enemies”.

Psalms 25:9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them His way”.

All encouraging.

Isaiah 49:10 “They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them besides springs of water”.

Isaiah 57:18 “I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; I will guide them and restore comfort to Israel’s mourners”.

Isaiah 58:11 “The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail”.

Proverbs 6:22 “When you walk, they will guide you; when you sleep, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you”.

Isaiah 42:16 “I will lead the blind along paths they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them”.

It was really encouraging that God promised to lead me ‘along unfamiliar paths’.
It has taken me a whole year just to decide on a business name, create a website,
learn to use WordPress, learn to use the Divi theme, learn to use Canva, learn to use Pinterest, learn to use Filmora 9, to create and edit my You Tube videos – all new to me!

Isaiah 63:14 “Like cattle that go down to the plain, they were given rest by the Spirit of the Lord. This is how you guided your people to make for yourself a glorious Name”.

John 16:13 “But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come”.

I felt impressed that God was saying that He will reveal my future direction to me little by little, as I am ready to receive it.  This was quite a breakthrough – knowing that God would reveal the way forward to me step by step, not all at once.

We are growing, spiritually, all through our lives.  We can only handle so much truth at a time and God does not want to overwhelm us.  He could tell us our whole future tonight and we would be so shocked, we would fall down in fear and give up. 

God only tells us what we are ready to hear.  Just the next step or two ahead.

The next verse gives me confidence that in my heart, I am going in the right direction.

Psalm 22: 30 “Future generations will be told about the Lord.”

This year, I have been really enjoying putting the Bible on video.

So far, I have put Romans 1, Romans 2 and Romans 12 on Powerpoint, added beautiful pictures, videos and music and created You Tube videos.

I am doing a similar thing with Bible promises – both on my website and in You Tube videos.

I have also been making You Tube videos about my life’s journey and the faithfulness of God.

My intention is to minister to this generation as well as ‘future generations’.

Psalm 102:18 “Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created can praise the Lord.”

Another confirmation about the direction I should be going with my online ministry.  That’s two Bible texts along the same line as each other.  This is encouraging.

I now feel confirmation that even though my Bible promises are not as ‘creative’ as someone else’s, it doesn’t matter.  Getting the Word of God out there in an easy to digest format is what matters.

After reading all these great Bible texts, I feel really encouraged and hopeful!!  I no longer feel down and discouraged. 

I feel like God has confirmed that creating content around the Word of God is what I’m meant to be doing.  He has also shown me that He will not reveal my whole ministry to me now, but will lead me little by little.  I definitely feel that I know the next few steps to take. I am also now certain that creating a ‘Bible Promise‘ section on my website is the right thing
to do.

You don’t need to read as many Bible texts as I have included here.  Sometimes, it is enough just to read one or two Bible texts.

The really important thing is:

1) Taking notice of what you are thinking and feeling.

2) Choosing to give your negative thinking to God and replacing it with His Word.

3) Looking up some relevant Bible texts and choosing to believe that they are for you.

4) Asking God to ‘speak’ to you as you read His Word.

5) Continuing to read and think about these Bible texts frequently and have them handy to re-read any time you start to lose your sense of peace. 

I would love you to let me know if you try this and how it goes   Next time you are feel negative emotions, try this out and see if you find encouragement, hope and guidance.