Many are the plans in the mind of a man,
Proverbs 19:21
but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.
“How many of you know what it’s like to have God wreck your plans?”
I asked this question while preaching a couple of weeks ago. Several hands were raised, and even more smiled and nodded. This is one of those nearly universal Christian experiences. Our lives rarely go exactly the way we thought they would, and we find ourselves wrestling with God for answers–answers that He doesn’t always seem eager to give.
Let’s be honest: sometimes God wrecks our plans because we never included Him in the first place. Our plans were motivated by selfish ambition, foolish desires, or some other toxic source. Sometimes our faithful Father lovingly disrupts our lives in order to expose our idols and offer us an opportunity to repent. Hopefully we get the message and start over with godly priorities.
But this is not always the case. God reserves the right to do as He pleases, even with our best intentions. I can think of no better example than Paul’s itinerary, found in Romans 15.
I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a while. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints.
Romans 15:24-25
Paul had been preaching for around 25 years by the time he wrote Romans. He had planted churches in several of the urban centers on the eastern side of the Roman Empire. Paul now had his sights on Spain, the western edge of the Roman Empire.
His plan was to stop by Jerusalem to bring financial aid to the believers there (money he had collected from other churches). From there he would pass through Rome and spend some time with the church there before heading to Spain.
That was Paul’s plan. It was prayerfully created and energized by Paul’s ambition to preach Christ where His name had never been heard (Romans 15:20-21).
But God shipwrecked Paul’s plan–literally. He encountered hostile opposition in Jerusalem and was placed in Roman custody for his own protection. He appealed his case to Caesar before the Roman authorities. They granted his request and arranged for a sailboat to take him to Rome. The boat encountered a storm strong enough to crash it upon a reef. Paul and his fellow prisoners swam for their lives or rode planks to the shores of Malta.
Paul eventually made it to Rome, but his stay was not brief. He spent two years under house arrest, preaching and teaching those who came to visit him.
The events I’ve just described (recorded in Acts 21-28) were clearly not what Paul had in mind.
We don’t know, in fact, if Paul ever made it to Spain as he had planned. Here’s what we do know: Paul wrote the “prison letters” during this time of house arrest in Rome. These letters are recorded in our New Testament: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. These scriptures have blessed and instructed millions of believers–far beyond the geographical borders of Spain and long after the Roman Empire had fallen. God, as always, knew exactly what He was doing with His trusted servant.
This quote comes to mind:
God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be.
-Oswald Chambers
Lord, teach us to trust in Your greater purpose–even when this requires You to change, disrupt, or even destroy our plans.
