Plans II

 So, is it sinful to make plans? No, there is no sin in making plans, as long as you allow for God to upturn every plan you’ve made on its head and send you in a diametrically opposite direction than where you intended to go. What may have seemed good and right to you as far as plans were concerned may not be good and right for you, and the one who knows the difference, the one who can assess your plans and give you the green light or stop you in your tracks, is God.

Obedience is better than sacrifice; the Word tells us as much. An added benefit of obedience is that you will never find yourself in the wilderness, on the outs, far from where you thought you were going, and wondering how you got there.

What James points out in those he used as an example is that they were driven by the notion of profit, of making more, of having more, and so it wasn’t that people were making a living he took issue with. It’s the love of money, which the Word identifies as the root of evil, that had taken over their hearts to such an extent that the plans they made were wholly dedicated to the notion of more.

To what end, all this more? Bigger, newer, and faster are all well and good, but if that’s the singular pursuit your existence revolves around, then your pursuit is meaningless, and your dream will perish with you.

When you want what God wants, when your plans defer to His plans, and you walk in obedience, the peace, joy, and fulfillment you will have will not be tethered to the things of this earth, to possessions or positions, but to something beyond the world’s ability to affect.

If we’re following our plan and vision, there’s always hesitancy and doubt when the road gets rocky and the climb gets steep. It’s inevitable. There has never been anyone, whether prince or pauper, that hasn’t had some sort of difficulty or unexpected event occur wherein they were stopped in their tracks. Even the most pampered of the pampered experience moments when all their influence, power, and resources become useless, and they have to deal with the situation they find themselves in, whether of their own making or someone else’s.

When we follow God’s plan, even when the road gets hard, we know He is there. Even when the climb gets steep, we know He will help us along. It’s His plan, it’s His roadmap, and if we follow faithfully after Him, our destination is assured. It’s liberating, it really is. When you follow God’s plan for your life, you never have to wonder if you should have done a certain thing, said a certain thing, or gone to a certain place because He is guiding your steps, and you’re just following orders as a good soldier ought.

When your life revolves around obedience, you never have to wonder what the Lord is saying because you are in constant fellowship with Him. Even when something looks like a no-brainer, like being offered a promotion or a new job with a lot more pay, take the time to inquire of God. Take the time to ask if it is His will. I know the flesh would like that extra zero on the paycheck every month or that fresh start fully funded by a new employer, but not everything that glitters is gold, and not everything that looks good is good for you.

During one of my lowest points in ministry, when someone had just tried to hijack the work, and we were close to half a million dollars in debt, I got a job offer from another ministry that included health benefits, over double what I was drawing as a paycheck, and free housing since they’d just bought a duplex and renting one half of it out would cover the mortgage, and all I’d have to cover was the utilities.

Admittedly, there was a reason for my hesitancy to say yes even before inquiring of God, and that was that both my grandfather and my mother had gone to their reward working to maintain this ministry that had been passed down to me, but when I tell you that the prospects of our survival looked bleak, it’s an understatement, if anything.

The geographical location of the new job was not without its allure, given that it was everything my wife had ever wanted, as far as a place to live, replete with palm trees and a beach within driving distance. Notwithstanding the reality that my family had bled and sacrificed for this work for, at the time, a good quarter century, it was still tempting.

If I’d had to make the decision in a vacuum, I could have justified taking the new job to myself with everything from ample resources to amplify the message to a promise that I’d be given the freedom to focus on whatever I felt led to pursue as far as teaching and content as long as it was Biblically sound.

From a purely human perspective, weighing the pros and the cons, it was a tempting offer. But then I inquired of the Lord, and He said no. That was it; just no. There was no promise of redress for the ministry I was currently leading; there was no promise that we’d wind up paying off the debt and being able to continue the work, but I didn’t need any of that. All I needed was an answer, a direction, and I knew that, as a matter of course, all these things would be ironed out, and God would make a way.

Was it easy? Hardly. We were driving back from Texas toward the tail end of the situation that had been thrust upon us, and between the four of us in the car, we were digging for change in our pockets to come up with enough gas money to get home. It could have been a moment of desperation, of surrender, of breaking down and giving up and walking away from the whole thing, but it wasn’t. The only reason it wasn’t is that contrary to everything happening in the physical, we knew we served a supernatural God, and He said this was the way we must go.

That’s the beauty of following God’s plan and not our own. Even in the darkest of moments, His light shines and leads the way.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.