The Master Planner
“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.” Proverbs 16:9
We all make plans–plans for the next day, the next week, for home projects, vacations, and the like. There is nothing wrong with planning ahead. God is the most active planner of all. In the first chapter of Genesis that tells us about creation, God had a plan for each of the six days that He went about creating the world, creating life, and then He rested on day seven. He also planned in the very beginning to make a way whereby sinful men and women could be forgiven and be reconciled to Him. Actually, I guess one could call the entire Bible God’s blueprint for the human race, planned out carefully and meticulously. He has one gigantic advantage over man concerning the ability to plan: being omniscient, He knows the future. However, He is overseeing a planet with billions of folks. Most of us have a rather small circle of folks over whom we are responsible for supporting and making plans.
We don’t always consult the Master Planner when we make our decisions in life. Many times we just choose what we think is best or what suits us but then forget or neglect to ask for God’s guidance or ask whether our plans are beneficial to our walk with Christ or if they are a hindrance. Many times our plans don’t work out quite like we anticipated. Sometimes it seems like more of our plans go by the wayside than actually come to fruition. I can’t think of a single idea that I have had that has worked out nearly perfectly. I read somewhere that those hindrances to our plans are referred to as the “booger factor”, you know, the things that we didn’t consider that might occur or problems that crop up to sidetrack us. It’s like those small household projects that you think won’t take than long, but the task becomes much more involved than you anticipated, and the small project takes the entire day which throws all of your other plans out the window. But, that’s life. As Murphy’s Law states: “If anything can go wrong, it will.” I know that sounds rather pessimistic, but life’s upsets are bound to happen.
We try to analyze why things happen and why our plans just don’t seem to work out like we want them to. In the movie “Shooter”, the main character who is falsely accused of an assassination and an FBI agent who is trying to help him go to see an old man who is some sort of expert in the field of conspiracies. He tells them “just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, you’re wrong.” That is absolutely true when we don’t allow the Lord to direct our steps in the way that He would have us go. James wrote in James 4:13-15 that boasting of one’s plans are futile because one doesn’t know what will happen tomorrow. He wrote that we should say, “I am going to do such and such if it is OK with the Lord” (paraphrased). If Christ is our Lord and Savior, shouldn’t we rely on His expertise in making our plans? He will never steer us wrong.