Plan "B" - curse or blessing?

I look back over the past 4 years with a wry smile.  So many developments in my life were a complete surprise. They are not awful, terrible things; just unanticipated. Life changed in ways that were beyond the boundaries even of my imagination!  But, I can trust God in the unforeseen circumstances of life because there is a foundation of faith that His Word and my experiences have put in place.  

25 years ago, life as I had planned it was swallowed by developments unsought and unanticipated. Due in part to my own foolish choices I found myself unemployed, forced to sell the home we had bought only months prior, and without prospects.  After 4 months of waiting and wondering, I received an invitation to became the pastor of a small church at one half the salary I previously made.  Life was surely going to be different for me, my wife, and 4 little kids depending on me for support. The sense of loss I felt was real. I mistakenly thought that ‘faith’ and grief could not co-exist, so I held all those churning emotions inside.  A couple of years later, I  suffered a time of terrible depression.

My life, at that time, was beyond plan 'B!' For a time I lived each day like a man feeling his way in the dark.  I wondered;  Has God left me?  Is He angry with me beyond restoration?  Will life ever make sense?  In time, it became clear that plan “B: was a gift of precious value.  When God allowed things to be turned upside down, it was a severe mercy that saved me from myself!  That reassignment that looked so much like a step backward was, in reality, a different kind of blessing.  God saved my marriage, enabled me to become a real Dad who spent time with his children, and most valuable of all - taught me to drink deeply of the cup of His amazing grace. He showed Himself faithful to me, even when I was faithless towards Him. I came to love that place seeing it not as the exile it once seemed, but as His sovereign plan for my good, a rich and wonderful place of greater blessings!

All these years later I thank Him, repeatedly, for letting me lose a life I loved, to find Him dearer as well as to find friends that I cherish to this day.  Yes, Joseph spoke a profound truth when he faced the brothers who sold him into slavery decades earlier- "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done." (Genesis 50:20, NIV)

Robert Burns, the 18th century Scottish poet, wrote of the poor mouse whose nest was torn up by the farmer's plow.  I love his words.
"The best laid schemes
o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley, (go oft awry)
And leaves us naught but grief and pain
For promised joy."

Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes, grouses, "And who knows what’s best for us as we live out our meager smoke-and-shadow lives? And who can tell any of us the next chapter of our lives?" (Ecclesiastes 6:12, The Message)   The answer is that our Heavenly Abba knows!  Our hopes and dreams for tomorrow seem no longer to have a foundation as the road ahead is washed out.  What then? What do we do when plan 'A' disappears?  We trust the One who knows the way.  God always has a plan. We may not see 'round the bend in life's road, and often that's a good thing, but He does. Life is never plan 'B' to Him, nor for those who live in His care.

Are you struggling with more questions than answers today?
Did the road of life you thought you were traveling disappear in the storms of life?
Wait on Him to reveal His purposes.

Here’s a word from the Word. I pray these will be words of life for us today.

“Trust in the Lord and do good. Then you will live safely in the land and prosper.
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.
Commit everything you do to the Lord.
Trust him, and he will help you. ...
Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act. ..." (Psalm 37:2-7, NLT)

________

How Great Is Your Love

My heart is steadfast, O God,

And I will sing

With all my heart and soul

Music for the King.

And I will awake the dawn

With my praise to You, O Lord.

How great is Your love

So much higher than the heavens

With faithfulness that reaches the sky.

How great is Your love

So much higher than the heavens

With faithfulness that reaches the sky.

O how great is Your love.

Be exalted, O God and let Your glory reign!

Be exalted, O God and let Your glory reign!

Let it reign, let it reign, let it reign.

Let it reign, let it reign, let it reign!

Bart Millard | Pete Kipley

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