Many are the plans...

Sitting in my study I have 2 boxes full of flyers looking like this:

Little did we know that when 19th April came around we wouldn't even be able to move out of our homes! Proverbs 19:21 states:

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart,

but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

How true! Many are the plans of a local church… and perhaps especially their minister…! It’s been a very helpful reminder to me that all of our plans are provisional. Even the plans we assume are set in stone. How little we are really in control, and how much we must learn to look to the Lord who alone knows the end from the beginning.

The apostle James puts it in his punchy way:

'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.” 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. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that." ' - James 4:13-15

We all have our own proverbial ‘boxes of flyers in the study’ in our own lives right now. Holidays, trips for the kids, family events. We have all had to learn to say ‘If it is the Lord’s will…’

It’s not such a bad lesson. Especially since the Lord in question died on the cross to secure our salvation, and has been working his unstoppable plan of salvation out across the world ever since. His plans are ultimately good, even when they inconveniently interrupt our plans.

And by the way, if you want 2000 flyers advertising our move to Christ Church on 19th April, please just let me know.