Lesson 14 - Plans

“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans” - John Lennon

In life, we all make plans, be it for school, work, entertainment, etc. Everyday we decide what we are going to do for the next 24 hours, if not further into the future. I make plans for months in advance - even going so far as to assume that things will occur in a rational order so that the plans will go according to plan. There are a lot of problems with this though. We, as proverbs states "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth." (27:1). Matthew states "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." - (6:34). James goes on to say "13 Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 16 As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." - (4:13-17). Still, have you noticed how many times in the old testament, especially in the Torah, they say "tomorrow"? Does that then mean that plans are bad? No! Jesus told His disciples to go "prepare" for the last supper. He says many times throughout the text to "prepare." Does this mean that talking about what we will do tomorrow is a sin and that we should, rather, prepare for what is to come? "If it is the Lord's will" that I go to UD tomorrow to help a friend with statistics and afterward go to church then I will. I will, tonight, prepare for my tutor session by studying statistics myself. Is this an okay statement? All I can do in life is prepare for what is to come, but trust that God will protect me from danger. So, I guess that means that I should prepare for the worst in everyday but expect the best. Be prepared to die at any moment so live in a way that, if I did die now, I wouldn't regret my last actions. However, I should expect that the best will come or that the worst will come? If I expect the best, I am ever disappointed as God is with us, but if I expect the worst then it can only go up from there. If I expect to die every day of my life I will become paranoid, but if I assume that I will live until I'm 80 then I'm boasting about tomorrow. I can learn from my past, live in the moment, and prepare for the future. I can get good grades, work hard at all I do, and achieve high goals now as to prepare for grad school, my CPA exam, and overall experience of life. But we aren't guaranteed the life which we are planning for. One must live in the moment and live the life that is now because that's where God is present, here and now. If you're always thinking about tomorrow, you will never realize what happened today until you, God willing, reflect upon it tomorrow and realized what you could have missed if you had been focused on the then and now. I guess the big question remains though - What is Gods plan for me?


What is God's plan for me? I, of course don't know this as we do not know what the future holds nor do we know what God knows. But what is He leading me to? I prefer to think that I'm on the path that He wants me to be on, but am I? All I can do is realize that I seem to be living for the future; living to die. If this is the case, I must stop planning so far ahead, things can change, accidents can happen, life can happen. Nothing ever works they way we planned, it only works how God planned it. My life may make detours from His plan, but he will keep me on track. I must find, through Him, where my life is headed. I must rethink my strategy. I don't "live," I let life pass me by. I watch as the beauty passes, I watch as Gods masterpiece flies by my speeding car. All I have done is sit back and let it happen. I need to take the initiative to prepare for what can come, but recognize that if I prepare to far ahead, I will ultimately remain as a future-minded person as opposed to a "here and now" person. God wants us to be a "here and now" person, not always worrying because, as believers, we need not worry about what we will eat or wear. He will provide if we knock and seek.