Five-Day Forecast 10-09-19
October 9, 2019
Ask my wife. I do not like it when plans change. In all fairness, however, my thoughts on the matter are a bit more nuanced than that.
I only dislike changes that do not benefit my original plans.
We know this to be true: life is an ever-changing, ever-evolving change of plans. We anticipate future events by doing our best to prepare for them. We make lists. We make phone calls. We study, we research, we create.
We are ready to go and do, offer and serve, provide and confer when we get the news--it’s not going to happen. Something has conspired to hijack our good intentions, and we have to pull out a hastily crafted Plan B or Plan C. What is it they say? “The best-laid plans of mice and men…?”
Yes, Robert Burns intones, those best-laid plans “Go often askew, and leave us nothing but grief and pain.”
I’m not entirely certain that I would put it quite so grimly, but yes, changes in plans can disturb and disorient.
I take comfort in the fact that God seems to take curve balls better than I do. The Biblical record is replete with things that did not go as planned by the Creator of the Universe. God’s garden experiment in the beginning was thwarted. Creation didn’t pan out as God had intended, and he sought to scrub the board clean and start fresh with a fella by the name of Noah. The covenant that God made with His people was quickly broken and the way to the Promised Land was paved with disappointment, disobedience, and heartache.
Because you’re familiar with the Biblical record, you know I’m just getting started.
Jesus’s plans were also under assault. In the Gospels, we see a Messiah whose best intentions are thwarted and whose days were filled with interruptions, crises, and threats. Yet, Jesus was undeterred from His ultimate plan, and we are all the beneficiaries of his commitment to staying the course even when everything was falling apart.
Sometimes…sometimes plans change for good. As people of faith, we claim that regardless of how bad things get—no matter how disrupted our lives become—God will bring about a good change in the end. We stake our claim on this truth. However, God’s redemptive power often works for good amid life’s unraveling. That is, God is working in real-time, and sometimes against our better judgment. Imagine that.
Fate, as it would seem, has thrown us a curveball. The fifth and final game of the National League Division Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Atlanta Braves is scheduled at the same time we meet for Wednesday night supper and Bible Study (Clearly, no one consulted me. And, might I add, if the Braves had won Game 4, they wouldn’t have interrupted our Wednesday night schedule).
Whatever shall we do?
Should we ignore the fact that tonight may be the final game of Atlanta Braves baseball until spring of next year? Or, should we roll with it and see how a change of plans can work for good and accomplish even more than what we originally planned?
I’m afraid you must show up this evening for dinner and Bible Study to find out.
Hint: Plan to remain in the MFC, adults, for our time together. And bring a tomahawk.