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Wow, it is February 28, and the end of the month is here. It kind of snuck up on me and late last night I realized I had to write a blog for this month. Time just got away from me. The best laid plans sometimes get messed up by life. I’m sure all of you have similar feelings. How could you live in today’s hustle and bustle society and not have plans screwed up now and then?
Sometimes I wish I had a road map to follow for my life, and then things would be so much more simple. The funny thing is that the road map has already been laid out for me; I just tend to leave the road and go cross country, hitting holes and dodging vegetation along the way.
Recently, I was watching Money Heist, one of my brother’s favorites and one he has been trying to get me to watch for some time. In the episode that I was watching, a character states that we make plans and God laughs. That’s a pretty famous quote. I’m not sure who said it first, but it got me thinking. Does God laugh at our plans?
The answer I believe is no. If anything, He cries because we are refusing to follow that perfectly laid out road map that He has for us. I think a better way to look at it is from this quote I came across the other day.
“I think I just learned that God has a plan for all of us, and I work hard and do all the things I can, but at the same time, His will is perfect; and me trying to control it, it’s not going to work.” – Matt Holliday
That quote seems to sum it all up. Make sure your plans line up with God’s plan because if they don’t, they just aren’t going to work out the way you thought. This comes full circle with the idea of, “who is in control, you or God?”
That’s really what the whole thing boils down to, control. God has your plan. He is ready to give you the map that will keep you on paved roads all the way. But even if you decide to say no or pull a Jonah and run the other direction, God will still get you there; it’s just that the cross country route is a lot more bumpy and filled with many more obstacles.
This reminds me of my own Jonah situation when I basically said nah to God. Early in my 20s and early in my marriage, I felt God was calling me into youth ministry. I had talked to my wife and to some ministers I trusted and was pretty much ready to start the process. Then something happened in the church that caused me to question everything about my faith, and religion in general.
It was a situation with leadership that made me feel like everything was hypocritical. I have since dealt with that with God, and I know that a small group of individuals does not the body of God make. But at that time, it didn’t matter to me what God had put on my heart; what mattered was what was in my head. So, I went the other direction and did my own thing.
I’ll save you all of the rugged terrain I went through because I stopped following the pristine map I had been given, and instead tell you how God got me there anyway. I was working in corporate America and miserable. God had opened up a coaching opportunity for me a year earlier, and it just seemed to be where I was truly happy. So I went to my wife and told her that I thought I should get my teaching degree. Here I was in my very late 20s, getting ready to go back to school…but this is how good our God is.
Parts of my life had changed, and I’d run into some serious potholes along the way, but God had marked that part of my map with a big X. He was showing me the way to work with youth – His way, His perfect way. Even though I had decided to go off the path and face the trials I faced, when I started trusting, and listening, and letting God be in control, He put me back on the path.
The final destination had shifted. However, the intent of God’s plan had not. He wanted me to work with youth, and here I am today, working with young people as a teacher and a coach. He wanted me to share faith and His miraculous power with youth, and now I teach and coach at a private Catholic high school where I pray before every class and game, am involved in retreats where God is so present and uses me and others to help students encounter Him on more than just a surface level, and almost daily something comes up about God and I’m able to talk to kids about the Lord.
God told Jeremiah that the plans He had for him were plans that wouldn’t harm, plans by which he would prosper. Some have twisted this verse to mean money, but I believe that “prosper” looks different for everyone. I don’t make a ton of money, but my life has certainly prospered because I got back on God’s path. Any way you slice it, God’s plan is perfect, and only we can screw up the perfect plans He has for us.
One last thing…I’m much further down the road of life now, but I still have to remember that God is in control and has that perfect map. I have to keep looking to Him, stay in contact with Him through His word and prayer, and do everything to line up my plans with His. It makes for a much smoother ride.
Until next month, keep watching the road and let the best navigator there ever was do His thing.
Your words ring so true! Thanks for sharing and thanks for all you do for our kids!!!
Thanks so much!
I am enjoying reading your posts Noah, and appreciate the love for others and love for God that is central to your writing. So both the writing and the reading bring glory to God. What a wonderful thing that is.
Thanks so much!