Pat and her husband Tom live in a log cabin on twenty acres.  She called last night and asked me to go get something to eat with her.  She is trying to figure out how to attach a garage to her log house.

We worked on a design for over two hours and never did come up with a solution that could attach to the house and not cover up the geo-thermal lines and wells--but there was no good way to do it.  I've helped retrofit eleven houses, and this is the first time I've been stumped.

You can't have everything you want in life.  You have to compromise.  In a situation like this one, I always start by listing my personal priorities--and when I reach an impasse, I take that item off the list and go on from there.  I give up something I really want because it just won't work.

But you can't do that in your Christian life.  Because God sets the priorities.  His plan is always perfect.  Problem is, you have to follow it.  The first step is to acknowledge that there IS a God.  Some people never get past that step because if there is a God, then He might want to require something from them.  They don't want any authority in their lives but their own.

The second step is to acknowledge that He came to earth and died as a sacrifice for the things you have done wrong,  then rose again to intercede for you.  But those steps don't get you there, they just get you started.  The Devil himself believes that there is a God and that He came to earth and died for sin, and rose from the dead.

You have to give up the authority over your own life.  Give all of yourself to God.  That's the hard part because people don't want to be subject to the will of God.  They want to rule their own lives.

It comes down to a matter of trust.  Do you trust God's plan for you or do you think He is "Out to get you."  The more a person reads the Word of God, the more you realize that He has good plans for us.

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord.  Thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you and expected end."  Jeremiah 29:ll