How many times have you started a project in life with plans for growth and change, only to be stopped mid-building because it wasn’t what God had intended for your life?

I believe one of the biggest lessons we will ever learn as believers is that His plans are better than our own. He will rework and rescript our life until we learn this lesson. Unless He builds the house, we labor in vain.

I have deeply desired a consistent and healthy mentorship/discipleship relationship for years. Scripture speaks to the older teaching the younger in Titus 2. So I kept reaching out and asking and trying to make it work.

I would find someone that felt like a God-ordained match, and then suddenly they were moving cross-country. So I would find another “fit,” but the communication felt one-sided and eventually drifted away.

So then I found a counselor — finally, a recognized and established entity to help me. But instead of finding healing, it ended up burning me bad as I was misunderstood, labeled and attempted to be “fixed.”

I just wanted to shut up shop. “God, I tried it your way and the doors keep closing. I’m trying to do what you’ve asked me to do. Why do you call us to discipleship and then not open the doors I’m forcing open?” Keyword: I’m forcing.

All our plans are well and good, but there is nothing transformative in Christian meetings, events or counseling if the Spirit of God is not breathing in the midst of it. Not by power, nor by might, but by His Spirit. (Zechariah 4:6)

What I didn’t realize for years is that we can’t create life-giving fellowship without His help. And it doesn’t happen in our timeframes; it happens on His. He knows when we are ready. He knows when the soil has been tilled and is ready for the seed to be planted.

When He moves, it doesn’t fit any of our preconceived notions. Change happens in the deep places no one but He can truly touch. Discipleship is not ultimately about finding people to help us but allowing Him to provide what we need through others. Read that one again because it is such a slight, but critically important distinction.

When we press into relationship with Him and ask for His guidance, He opens doors beyond human ability to set up. He makes the connections we have been longing for our entire life and fills the very places that we need transformative growth with His deeply satisfying living water.

But it’s only when we stop looking, stop plotting and start preparing the ground.

Unless the Lord builds the house,

the builders labor in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city,

the guards stand watch in vain.

Psalm 127:1

I’ve finally found the spiritual mom I’ve been longing and praying for. She is called, equipped and most importantly walking in discipleship herself. She leans not on her own understanding but acknowledges Him as the author of everything she does. The power of God at work in her life is not hers, but simply something lent to her to equip the body. She is simply a funnel that His power is at work through.

And because of that humility of posture, lives are being transformed through her obedience. He is lining women up, sending them her way, and then sending them out. And the fruit is not of this world; it is vibrant, reproductive and 100 percent His Spirit at work.

I don’t know if I would have ever picked her out on paper. She and I come from completely different backgrounds and experiences. God literally dropped her in my lap when I stopped looking and started seeking Him. Everything about who she is lines up with who God has equipped me to be. She was drawn to me just as much as I was to her. It’s organic and unforced. Every conversation sends me out equipped with timely details to fight the battles before me.

I am learning a small, but hugely important lesson: Only God can build a house that stands firm. Only God watches over a city that can stay secure.

So word to the wise, let’s stop plotting and start seeking. Because He CAN and WILL build the house. Let’s let Him do just that!

Unless the Lord Builds the House