Second Thoughts: Blessed With Disruption
Author: Thomas White | Editorial Department, Living Church of God
Raise your hand if your 2020 hasn’t gone exactly according to plan.
If typing with one hand weren’t really annoying, I’d be raising mine even as I write. Wherever we are in the world, we all had plans for this year—but thanks to humanity’s insane proclivity to eat everything it can fit in its mouth (from bats, to squirrels, to Tide Pods), the majority of those plans have now been flushed down the worldwide toilet that is COVID-19.
Mr. Rod McNair’s recent assembly, however, drew attention to the undeniable good that has come of this situation—more people seem to be taking the Scriptures seriously, for one thing, which is reason enough for just about any crisis to occur. Many are becoming more adaptable, too, and accounts of people being genuinely selfless toward one another in this time of nearly universal hardship prove that though this is definitely Satan’s world, “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5, The Scriptures 2009).
A Comforting Warning
And frankly, none of that good has been according to our shortsighted human plans either, which has me pondering the biblical truth that “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). We usually read that as a warning: “Don’t treat your plans like sureties, because God’s in control, not you.” We can also read it as the humbling reminder that “You might make plans, but you’re never the one who accomplishes them—only God has that power.”
But as we know (though probably not deeply enough), “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). So if our heart is what plans our way, what does that say about our plans?
Jeremiah 17:9 actually lends profound comfort to Proverbs 16:9. Since the heart, which we use to make our plans, is actually deceitful and wicked, this proverb ends up reassuring us, “Your plans are pretty terrible, but don’t worry—God is going to completely disrupt them. He’s the one actually directing your life.”
His Plans Are Better
In the midst of a disruption of life as hefty as what we’re all going through right now, it’s hard to imagine that our plans being so thoroughly upended is actually a good thing. But when we peruse our pasts, almost all of us can recognize times when God mercifully rescued us from our own plans. I am nowhere near where I thought I would be five years ago—and I need to thank God for that, because looking back, His blessing my life with disruption after disruption was keeping me from making a horrendous mess of it all.
Does that mean we should never make plans? Of course not. Frankly, we couldn’t stop making plans even if we tried—it’s our nature to try to manage our futures in some capacity, and if we didn’t, we’d all basically end up as human furniture. From a big-picture perspective, we all have to plan on being in God’s Kingdom, and from a little-picture perspective, we all have to plan on getting out of bed tomorrow.
But amidst of all that essential planning, let’s try to remember that for the most part, we humans aren’t very good at it—and we usually only recognize how bad our plans are in hindsight. That being so, we can take comfort in the midst of trials like this, knowing that when our plans grind to a halt, what we’re seeing is the hand of our loving Father, subtly blessing our lives with disruption.
Thomas White was one of the onsite Living Education students for the 2018-2019 semesters. He also has a Bachelor’s Degree in English. Thomas currently works as an Editorial Assistant for the Living Church of God. According to his wife, he eats pizza in entirely the wrong way.
