Some thoughts on Plans

Plans are on my mind. Wedding plans – house plans- lesson plans – staying and leaving plans – visa plans – honeymoon plans – living plans – job plans – coming and going plans – saving plans – spending plans – next week – next month – next year plans

Constant asking and being asked, thinking, worrying, dreaming, scheming, wondering and worrying a little bit more...

Often struggling to trust

Doubting that everything will work out in the end. Which bit is the end? And will we even live to see it?

COMMIT TO THE LORD EVERYTHING YOU DO AND YOUR PLANS WILL SUCCEED (Proverbs 16.3 NIV)

Meaning...
Because I’m a Christian everything I do will go well? Perhaps not...

Meaning... A cursory mention of the one above and like a lucky charm we’ll hold onto promises that perhaps we’ve interpreted to fit our needs, stamping our plans with the approval of words we put into God’s mouth...rather than letting him speak. Have we turned his name into superstition?

To COMMIT means to entrust, to let someone else take charge, a handing over of control... so our plans become His...a surrender to the bigger picture where we are not the main character on the stage. An uncomfortable idea, yet comforting too, knowing that He holds our burdens as well as our dreams in hands that show the signs of a love too deep to describe

But does that then mean we just sit back, willing God’s will without getting up from the sofa – as if His will is a conveyor belt, as it doesn’t really involve us... letting God ‘get on with his business’ while we get on with ours, losing ourselves in things that have little eternal consequences

We talk about following God – when we follow someone we’ve got to know where they are going, watch out for the twists and turns as they wind a path in front of you. It requires knowing something of the One we are following, so that when their back disappears from view, we have a sense of the direction in which they might head

A quote:
“Jesus always calls us to move forwards and we find ourselves battling with the desire to settle for a quiet life. The Lord calls us to journey with him in order to settle the land. The call is to respond to the cry of creation, to fill it with the presence of the Lord” *

Perhaps, then we walk with and not behind... walk with Him in the garden in the cool of the day... walk and talk and share and learn and BE together...

Perhaps, then we are not just puppets on a string or chess pieces on a board, being manipulated by a heavenly hand.

Perhaps it’s more like an orchestra... he the conductor and each of us with a different part to play.
With full freedom to deviate from the score, and make mistakes...and the wonder, the miracle of it is in the way he turns these accidents, squeaks, crashes and broken strings, or even wilful out-of-tune notes and use them to create a masterpiece... thank God it’s not a solo piece we’re playing! Thank God His grace and creativity reach to the farthest stretches of the universe...

Commit your works to the LORD
And your plans will be established (Proverbs 16.3 NASB)

So perhaps the best plan we could make is to find ways by which the symphony can be heard in even the darkest, most silent corners of the earth, and to encourage the broken, the hurting, the angry and the cynics to pick up their instruments and begin to play along

"The call is to respond to the cry of creation, to fill it with the presence of the Lord”.

Impossible?

THERE IS NO WISDOM, NO INSIGHT, NO PLAN THAT CAN SUCCEED AGAINST THE LORD (Proverbs 21.30 NIV)

And the Lord is... Love. The Lord is a God of righteousness and justice. The Lord is mercy and grace. The Lord is compassion. The Lord is life.

Nothing clever, nothing conceived, nothing contrived,
can get the better of GOD. (Proverbs 21.30 The Message)

Perhaps today it might feel like a plan has failed. perhaps today the ending isn’t a happy one. But perhaps today we only see a fraction of the picture, a mere line of the entire story. And perhaps the ending, in the very end – which will also be a beginning - will be all the more wonderful because of such lines.


*Can't remember where this quote is from, found it written on a piece of paper!