February 16

Feb 16 - Today from Proverbs 16 we look at verse 9
"In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps."

I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Mr. Holland's Opus, but there is a part in the movie where the somewhat embittered father of a deaf boy comes to grips with the reality that his son needs love and acceptance just like every other human being. In a very touching scene the dad sings a John Lennon song to his son. I am not sure what the title of the song is, but one of the lyrics goes something like, "Life is what happens while we're making all our plans." At least that's close. That's the thought which came to mind when I read this proverb. Life is what happens while we're making all our plans.
I was one of those people who never really planned a course for my life. I was never motivated to go on to college. At the tender age of 19 I was drafted and sent off to the front lines of Viet Nam to kill for a living (how's that for a paradox). When I returned home I was content just to live one day at a time and to get all I could out of that day. That worked for a few years. I fell in love with a moral woman, got married and we had a couple of sons. Know what? Life happens even when you don't make plans. Then, at age 30 I met the Savior. Life took a major turn. Life suddenly really meant something. Now my life had depth of meaning. I had a good steady job, so I didn't plan any new courses in my career. Then, at age 38, God determined a huge step in my course and I ended up at the Iron Curtain and came face to face with my persecuted family of believers on the other side. My life would never be the same. I eventually walked away from my job of 20 years and stepped into service to the persecuted church. I stayed in that school for 10 years and learned more than any university could ever teach me. Life is like that. Once you've held a dying child, or stood over a mass grave of scores of murdered people, you change. But there is also the other side. You also witness a grown man cry and kiss the new bible you gave him as though it were the most precious thing on earth. You feel a little ashamed because you have a dozen of them in your house and they are rarely touched. You laugh with a man who sees fresh water come up out of the ground because he knows it will greatly reduce the infant mortality rate in his village and other nearby villages. It is a wondrously joyous laughter. You suddenly realize how you take for granted the wonderful marvel that you can go to several places in your home and just turn a faucet and get safe water. Any time. You see richness of faith in people who have little or nothing in this world, yet they possess all things because they know Jesus Christ. You feel a little cynical toward your fellow countrymen because they have so much, yet they never seem to have enough. At the end of 10 years I sensed that the Lord had released me from this missions school. Now what? What new school is ahead? What step has God determined for me now? Now I am currently serving on staff at a church. A church is not a building - it is people. People who belong to the Lord Jesus, but who probably don't think about it often enough. I don't. It is a family of people, each one planning a course. So many courses, going in so many directions, for so many different reasons. How blessed we are to have a merciful Father who patiently works to determine the steps of His children so that eventually they are seeking to follow the course He planned. It's going to come out His way, sooner or later. Some may not stay the course, and may drop out. Some may continue to fight to plan their own course. It is futile, no plan will succeed against the Lord (Proverbs 21:30). Some will continue to drift - just as I did for too many years. They will miss a lot of what God had for them because they were content with the pleasures of today. But some, I pray many, will sense the steps which the Lord determines, and they will fall into step and move forward. There is tremendous strength in unity, especially when we are unified in God's plan. That was a vital issue for Jesus when He prayed for us in John 17. Read verse 20 in particular. I see my name there. Do you see yours? Doesn't it impact your heart to know that on the night He was betrayed, as He was facing the cross, that He prayed for you? The content of that prayer must have been pretty important to Him. Maybe we should focus a little more on God's plan for us, and a little less on our own plans. God's plan is what happens while we are making all our plans.