Just Do It!

In this morning's sermon, my pastor made an interesting point.  "Everything is NOT working for your good!".  From where he stood on the pulpit, I'm sure that the confused expression on my face was barely noticible amidst the sea of  faces in the congregation.  All of my life I've heard Christians (including myself) say that God is working everything out for our good.  After all, God is sovereign, isn't He?  He knows all and sees all, right? 
 My faith in God are based on the absolute truthfulness of the words found in the Holy Bible.  As I pondered my pastor's initial statement, I decided to listen to the rest of what he had to say.  "Yes" he said.  "Every good and perfect gift comes from above, but if every thing that happens to us in our lives is as God would have it, right from the start, would Jesus have instructed us to pray the Lord's prayer like He did?"  Would praying that the will of God be done in the earth as it is in Heaven be necessary if it were already so?   
I didn't know what to make of the sermon at that point...that is, until the Holy Spirit showed me some things.  God's will for us is always good, but we have a responsibility to speak and pray His will over our lives and to bind everything that presents itself as contrary to it!  God knows our end from our beginning, but we have alot to do with what happens and how things happen in between.  So I decided that I would "just do it"...just like the old Nike ad suggested!  "Do what?", some may ask.  "Just pray". "Just trust God's plan".  "Just continue to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit".  "Just continue to seek a more intimate relationship with God".  I believe that if I do all of those things, the "good" that God is working out for Christina will come to pass.  I'm willing to put in the prayer time to usher the will of God into her life knowing that the parts that I just can't do, He's already taken care of!