Plans

 We all make plans. To a greater or lesser extent, we all have some sort of calendar we fill in with what we’ll be doing over the course of a week, a month, and the bold among us for the next five years. I’ve been asked on occasion what my five-year plan is, and rather than say I don’t have one, my answer is usually to see every sunrise. That’s the plan, at least. Whether or not it pans out, comes to fruition, and I will be among the living for another five years, God only knows.

It is also a proven fact that sometimes our plans have to change. This is why they invented trip insurance; even something such as going away on a family vacation has to be put on the back burner for whatever reason from time to time. We are not guaranteed another five years, five months, or five minutes. It’s all in God’s hands, and we trust Him knowing He is good.

Because we’ve been told we are the captains of our ship, the masters of our fate, the ones holding the steering wheel and going where we want to go, we sometimes make plans without consulting God or allowing for the possibility that our plans conflict with His plans. We are so set on our vision for tomorrow that we don’t bother to inquire what His vision for our tomorrow is, and when God steers us toward a destination we had not foreseen, we resist, bristle, and kick against the goads.

Where God wants you to be will always be a better place than where you want to be. I thought I’d get that out of the way so there are no misconceptions. To your human reason, mind, intellect, or logic, it might not seem so at the time, but God’s ways are always better. His plans are always superior to ours, and the more we grow in God and learn to trust Him, the more we see His hand guiding us, the more we will know the truth of it.

James 4:13-17, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit’; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’ But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.”

The example James uses is not of someone who said they would go to such and such a city, spend a year there, and preach the gospel; rather, they would buy and sell and make a profit. Their focus was not on the kingdom or the work of God but on career paths, work plans, and things they would do to make a few shekels.

We can get caught up in the rat race. We can get caught up in climbing corporate ladders, building businesses, growing ministries, or one of a dozen other things, but James pumps the breaks on our big dreams by reminding us that we are temporal creatures, here today and gone tomorrow, with no permanence on this earth no matter how much we’ve been able to amass and squirrel away.

If the high-profile passing of billionaires in recent years has taught us anything, it’s that no matter how much you offer, you can’t buy an extra second of life. You can’t barter your way to another sunrise or another sunset even if everything you worked a lifetime for was on the table as a bargaining chip.

These words, written by a simple man some two thousand years ago, likely by the light of a lamp with a quill and some ink, resonate to this day because of the existential truth they remind us of. The message goes beyond making plans and speaks to a deeper, more profound reality of man: know what matters in life!

People who plotted and schemed and clawed their way to the top of their chosen field, sacrificing everything else for that singular purpose, look back and echo Solomon in concluding that all is vanity. Does the thread count of the sheets upon which you breathe your last matter? Does the price of the coffin you’ll be laid to rest in count for anything? Does the pomp and ceremony with which you’ll be put in the ground mean anything? You’ll still be dead, and so will I, then judgment.

While we are on this earth, we are counseled to prioritize the things that truly matter, those things that will have long-lasting and eternal consequences, and to pursue what brings true joy and fulfillment, and not the wisps and vapors of the baubles that the godless chase after with such ferocity.

It doesn’t matter how many rooms a mansion has; you can only sleep in one bed at a time. You can only eat so many meals in your waking hours, wear one suit of clothes in a given day, drive one car at a time, and while we spend our days toiling to amass more and more, the most precious resource we have is slipping from us, ticking away with every second.

How long I live is up to God. That I’ve lived a life worth living is up to me. Did I use my time to heal or hurt? Did I use my time to comfort or wound? Did I use my days focused solely on me, or did I pour myself out for others, being about the Father’s work and pursuing His glory rather than mine?

This is not a judgment; it is self-reflection. It is something I dwell on the older I get, and I find that it’s easy to get distracted away from the things that truly matter if I allow it.

As history tells it, Marcus Aurelius, a famed Roman emperor, hired a servant whose only job was to follow him around and whisper in his ear, ‘memento mori’ every day, which roughly translated means, remember you are mortal. That was it, the man’s sole function, the reason for his employ was to remind the emperor that he too was mortal. Remember, you, too, are mortal, but beyond this mortal coil, eternity.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.