I remember when my first daughter was born. Even though we induced, it took all day. All day and well into the night. Things don’t always go exactly as planned, but when we have faith and patience, we find that God is with us. His plans do not always, or even often, match up with our own. We can often only see them in hindsight.
Thus, as I write this, we await yet another salvo in the ongoing negotiations with the buyers of our home here and the inspection report on our new house in Ft. Wayne. My wife keeps reminding me that God has guided things so clearly up to this point that even if things don’t work out the way we expect, it will be OK.
She is wise. She says she gets it from this preacher she knows. I don’t know what she is talking about.
Plans are nice. Plans are good. Plans rarely survive contact with reality. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that the Bible tells us not to say we will journey to this city or that but to say, “if the Lord wills.” Even Paul, on his missionary journey, did not plan on going to Macedonia, but a vision of a man begging was hard to ignore.
Thus I say: If the Lord wills, our plan is to be in Fort Wayne on June 8, and my first official day will be June 10. I plan on preaching this summer about being the Body of Christ on Sunday mornings and teaching a series entitled “How to study the Bible for all it’s worth” on Wednesday nights. Other than that, I plan on easing into the life of the church while getting settled over the summer. We, as a family, will make plans for the fall during this time and seek the direction for our future.
If the Lord wills.