Merging Our Plans With God's

We all make plans for our life. We carry an idea about how we want - and expect - it to go.

But God has a plan for our life as well, and most of the time, He wants something completely different for us than we want for ourselves. Some of us relentlessly pursue certain things and move heaven and earth to see those things come to pass. Sometimes we are successful, sometimes not, and when we are not successful, some of us sacrifice things that really aren't meant to be sacrificed, allowing human nature to drive us to cash in everything for that particular want, when it is not God's will that we have it.
I know from experience that sometimes, when what we are striving to acquire does not come to pass, it is because God has something better in mind. We might not think His plan is better at the time, but later on when that time has passed, if our hearts are open, we do eventually see that His plan was a thousand times better that ours.
So instead of  relentlessly going after what we want, we should find out what God wants for us. Many times God will allow us to acquire our major wants because He knows the outcome and how it will affect us; that is called a consequential learning experience. Many times our desires are in agreement with God's because they are righteous desires and He really wants us to have what we seek. But even when they aren't, I find it better to change the course- even if it means doing a 180 - and walk along the path He has for us. I promise you that if you do this, God will always make it worth it, and whether we see the fruits of our course-correction in this life or the next, it is all the same.