Recently, a student shared with me that they thought they would die around the age of 73. Apparently up until this age, the individual had figured out the course of their life – when they would be married by, when they would have kids, all the details of life that for the rest of us are so much a mystery, were summarized in their master plan. I couldn’t help but smile after we finished talking After all, from where I sit, it was easy to shake my head at the naivety, to remember how I thought I had everything figured out and how different my life turned out to be. And yet, while I could recognize the presumption in others, it’s so easy to miss it in myself. I am, after all, my father’s daughter, a man who even at his memorial service was remembered as a planner and I definitely take after him. It’s easy to think of this propensity as a good thing, and for my dad it was, because he has learned to hold his plans lightly. But most of us haven’t, and like many good things, we often abuse it and end up far from where God desires.
The truth is, as this student will no doubt quickly learn, as soon as you create a master plan, you’ll in all likelihood get thrown a huge curve ball that you didn’t anticipate. God didn’t intend for us to know what comes next (unless He purposefully reveals otherwise); part of faith is trusting, as Corrie Ten Boom said, “an unknown future to a known God.” And while Ms. Ten Boom makes a good point, she was only partially right. Because while we might not know the details of our future here on Earth, for those who follow Christ, we do know our ultimate destination. He stated in His Word, that He’s gone to prepare a place for us (John 14:1-3) and He promises His followers that we will be with Him there someday. And the great thing about God’s plan is that we don’t have to worry about the unanticipated curve ball – for nothing happens that He is unaware of, nothing is outside of His sovereign control. We know that what He purposes, He accomplishes and so we can boldly say that we might not know the details between now and then, but ultimately we do know the Master plan.
