Are you disappointed with your life? Do you feel like you’ll never accomplish anything remarkable? How should you pay attention to what God has in store for your life?

Bible Gateway interviewed Chad Veach (@chadcveach) about his book, Faith Forward Future: Moving Past Your Disappointments, Delays, and Destructive Thinking (Thomas Nelson, 2017).

What do you mean, “If you aren’t willing to do ridiculous things, you’ll never experience miraculous things”?

Chad Veach: A ridiculous thing can be viewed as something like “walking on water” like Peter did! It’s amazing how life works this way. You have to do something ridiculous—like stretch out your hand when it’s been withered your whole life—in order to see something miraculous.

It reminds me of that saying, “If you move, God moves.” A lot of times, we want God to move first. But he always moves after we do!

You write that people’s personal life-dreams need to conform to God’s plan for them. How can people discern God’s plan for them?

Chad Veach: I think discern is the right word. I think that we discover God’s plan by “sensing” his direction: “feeling” our way into where God is leading us.

Most often he leads us in promptings, urgings, and undeniable sense that he’s guiding us into (or out of) something. How do you discern? You’ll never know until you try!

What’s the biblical basis for not dwelling on past failures?

Chad Veach: Philippians 3:13-14 (NKJV)—“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

How should a person learn to listen to God’s voice?

Chad Veach: I think the way you learn to hear God’s voice is through reading God’s Word. God speaks loudest and most accurately through his written Word!

The more I read the Bible, the more it helps me to discern the difference between his voice and others—because God’s Word is actually and literally God speaking to me!

What do you mean by a person having their own God-given grace?

Chad Veach: The Bible says we have all been given a measure of grace and a measure of faith. So God gave you your gift and gave you your faith. How awesome is that!

Paul often talked about the grace that was given to him. The God-given grace to be able to preach, lead, be an apostle, have influence with the Gentiles. All of that was from God.

God did that with Paul. And he does that with you and I. He gives us all a grace zone!

How does God “always call us forward”?

Chad Veach: He always calls us to follow him! He did this with all of the disciples. And most everyone he encountered. Calling them out of where there were—and into where he was going.

He calls us into the future he’s planned. He does this by urging, nudging, speaking. Philippians 2:13 says, “for it is God who is at work in us, both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

The word work in the Greek is the word energio; it’s where we derive the word energize. I always think of the Energizer Bunny. Remember the Energizer Bunny? He would be in the desert, beating his drum, and the announcer would say, “He just keeps going and going.”

God is at work in us, spurring us forward into what he’s planned for our lives!

How do you want readers to be changed after reading your book?

Chad Veach: I want every reader to be deeply impacted by God’s firm commitment to our future. So many people feel like the devastation of sin and the aftermath of shame has disqualified them from receiving God’s very best.

This is not the God we serve! We serve the God of unconditional love. And the God of new beginnings; also known as second chances.

What is a favorite Bible passage of yours and why?

Chad Veach: I absolutely love Ephesians 3:20. “Now unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to the power that is at work in us.”

It gets me fired up. God can do more than I could ever ask, think, or imagine.

What are your thoughts about Bible Gateway and the Bible Gateway App?

Chad Veach: Well, I’m obsessed with both and use both of them every single day. I use my app non-stop. And do all of my Bible reading on Bible Gateway. Not to mention, I use Bible Gateway to prepare all my messages. So, you could say I’m sold and addicted—and the #1 fan!

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

Chad Veach: I want everyone to know that God has already been in your future. In fact, he’s now standing there, beckoning you and calling you into the future that he’s for you! It’s better than anything you could ever imagine. All you have to do is follow Jesus to discover the amazing life he has planned for you!

Faith Forward Future: Moving Past Your Disappointments, Delays, and Destructive Thinking is published by HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc., the parent company of Bible Gateway.

Bio: Chad Veach, author of Faith Forward Future: Moving Past Your Disappointments, Delays, and Destructive Thinking and Unreasonable Hope: Finding Faith in the God Who Brings Purpose to Your Pain, is the pastor of Zoe Church in Los Angeles, California. Chad and his wife, Julia, have four children.

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