JOEL OSTEEN DAILY DEVOTIONAL SUNDAY 12TH NOVEMBER 2023 – Keep Trusting, Keep Praising, Keep Dreaming

God has a great plan for your life, something greater than you’ve imagined, but that plan won’t come to pass without opposition. There will be things you don’t understand, things that are not fair. God doesn’t take us in a straight line to our destiny. There will be detours, delays, even some dead ends. You’ll come to a Red Sea or face a Goliath. Someone walks away, there’s a tough season at work, a child gets off course, or a loan doesn’t go through. It seems like a setback, but really it’s a setup that will lead you to your destiny.

The test is to keep the faith, to keep trusting when you don’t understand, to keep believing when all your circumstances say, “It’s never going to work out.” It’s knowing that God is on the throne, that His plans for you are for good, that what He has purposed for your life will come to pass.

Nobody faced more betrayals, rejections, and hardships for sharing his faith than the apostle Paul. Second Corinthians 11 lists some of them: beaten with rods three times, given thirty-nine lashes five times, stoned by an angry mob and left for dead, falsely accused and put in prison several times, shipwrecked, deserted by colleagues when he stood trial. Paul had all these opportunities to be angry and bitter. But near the end of his life, sitting in a prison cell, he gives us the secret to living in victory. He said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). He was saying, “Through all the difficulties, betrayals, and things I didn’t understand, God was in control and leading me to new levels of my destiny.”

Paul said about all of his difficulties, “None of these things move me” (Acts 20:24). You have to get to the point where you’re not moved by disappointment, not moved by opposition, not moved by the troubling medical report, not troubled by delays. You have to have a made-up mind that you’re in it for the long haul. No matter what comes your way, you’re going to keep believing, keep trusting, keep praising, keep dreaming, knowing that God has you in the palms of His hands, that He’s working behind the scenes.

He says, “No weapon formed against you will ever prosper.” He says, “What was meant for your harm, I will turn to your advantage.” God being for you is more than the world being against you. Don’t be moved by what you see; it is only temporary. When God brings it all together, it will make sense. Stay in peace, keep the faith, knowing that God is ordering your steps and has the final say.