March 8

Day 269: Different Plans For Us

This past year has discouraged missional living, unfortunately. Previously known opportunities for engagement have been few and far between.

We have not seen our neighbors nearly as much as before. We have entertained far fewer people in our home. We've hosted no all-church backyard parties. And we've had but one houseguest in the past 12 months.

So today we look at our relatively unused guest bedroom, and we knock around in this house that is bigger than two people really need.

So Deb and I cooked up an idea, a means by which we could live intentionally in the midst of an obvious mission field. We thought to end our lease in May. And move on to the UAS campus as 'staff in residence."

We thought, of course God would want this, love it even. It's sacrificial and missional. It would require a lot of downsizing, and would add some considerable inconvenience. We would be living in the middle of a demographic not at all like our own.

It all sounded so very Christian. At least we thought so.

But here's what happened. It didn't. The staff in residence program is under extensive review. The timing for this review does not align with our own timeline. The idea went "poof," and left us like a streaking meteor.

There have been times in our history when we had an idea, but God said "no." Looking back, the Lord was protecting us from our own ideas and desires. He had something better in mind.

The Lord does this sometimes. The apostle Paul experienced this himself. In Acts 16 Paul had intended to go to the Roman province of Asia. But we read how the Holy Spirit had "forbidden" him even to speak a word in that place.

I don't think the Holy Spirit had guards stationed against Paul on the border entering Asia. It's my guess there were circumstances that simply did not align.

But all because God had different plans for Paul's missionary efforts. A different place and people He wanted to hear the good news of the gospel. And it happened as the Lord ordained.

Proverbs 16:9 says, "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps."

We all acknowledge that. We don't, because we cannot argue against it. We all know God is God. He is the Sovereign King. He is in ultimate control.

How often do we imagine and begin acting on plans we think are so right, plans we think God cannot help but agree to, and then find out we were wrong?

How often to we think we know God's will, only to find we misread the whole scenario? Even though our motives were so pure as to want only to be obedient and sacrificially serve Him?

There are times, and for us this is one of those times, when we have to be okay with hearing "no." We don't sense the Lord is challenging our motives. We don't imagine He's angry with us.

It's just that our plan is not His plan. We thought we had read it correctly. But turns out we hadn't. We've learned, again, that we are not infallible.

"The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps." I read this to mean, if it's not His plan, it's no plan at all.

There is something strangely comforting is all this. He's protected us in the past, neither Deb nor I can contest that. Maybe it's happening again.

Or maybe we've given the Lord a reason to wryly smile again, like any good Father does when His enthusiastic children tell Him their plans.

While He knows better. And has different plans for us.