"God has a plan"



After I got my bombshell news the other day, several people commented to me, "God has his perfect timing" or "God has a plan!" I know they meant it as an expression of affection - and I am grateful for it - but that's just not how I think of things. God's sovereignty brought me no comfort when my mother died, nor when my brother died a few months later. All that God's sovereignty meant to me then - and now - is that there's a bunch of questions that I'd like to ask but that I know I won't like their answers. Telling me that "God has a plan" is not so different from saying, "This is just another milestone on the eternal Gantt chart."

I buy all five points of Calvinism, but thinking of God as a cosmic project manger just doesn't matter to me just now.

What matters to me in these moments is that Christ is with me and that he loves me. I am not alone. Things may get tough; fine. Things may go sour; that's ok too, as long as I know he loves me. That's the real message of being a Christian: Jesus holds you close, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.

For those who still insist on "God has a plan" as their form of comfort and condolence, consider this article in Lark News. Here's an excerpt:

Tom Stefans, 19, recently announced to friends at his Christian college that he believes nothing in the world happens by coincidence but that everything is the result of God’s invisible hand at work. Friends promptly launched a secret crusade of absurdity to test the limits of Tom’s beliefs.
...
They paid someone to go to Tom’s dorm room at 3 a.m. dressed in a chicken suit and greet him with, "Hi, Chicken Man." When Tom asked what was going on, the person said, "You are the chicken man! You are the chicken man! Take your beef!" He then threw a hot dog at Tom and ran away.

Let's face it: sometimes life gives you a guy with a hot dog in a chicken suit. There's a plan? Yeah, but it's not exactly relevant at the moment. Sometimes life sends us things that are not quite so silly. There is a plan, you know, but our focus needs to be on Christ, the one who loves us, not the eternal Gantt chart. "I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you."

Posted: Fri - February 22, 2008 at 12:23 AM           | |

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