Rewritten Plans

This year I learned to love Jesus more by embracing the rewriting of my plans for his purposes. 

A friend of mine has Proverbs 16:9 tattooed on her feet. “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” What a great reminder with each step! I believe these past two years have marked all of us as we have realized that we can make many plans but have no control over the direction we find ourselves headed.

At the beginning of 2020, my work calendar was full of scheduled trips all over the world. I enjoy traveling, so I was really looking forward to those opportunities. I also felt an underlying tension in managing my heaviest travel year-to-date alongside spending quality time with a family just beginning to navigate the modern teenage experience and simultaneously juggling a rigorous study program.

It wasn’t long into 2020 that I found my calendar wiped clean. I watched as God rewrote the rest of 2020 and 2021 in a direction I wouldn’t have anticipated. Instead of losing days shuffling between airports, I gained insights into my daughters’ school lives firsthand as they caught my ear between their virtual classes and my meetings from home. Instead of suffering from jet lag, I found myself a little sleepier some mornings because we had stayed up late as a family enjoying each other’s company. I had the joy of writing my doctoral project from home surrounded by ample resources rather than trying to cram in words on airplanes and in hotel rooms.

Theologian James Montgomery Boice recommended that readers place Proverbs 16:9 and similar verses from Proverbs on God’s sovereignty within the context of the culminating statement in Proverbs 21:30, “There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan, that can succeed against the Lord.” Based on all the assumptions I carried into 2020 about how the world works, I could not have planned this past year with its resulting activities and priorities. I’m grateful that God’s sovereignty won out. His plans were much better than mine. That truth gives me peace for the uncertainty of the future.

I know that I have been blessed with how God established my steps during this unexpected season. I don’t take it for granted knowing that God has taken others down difficult roads they did not ask to walk over the last two years. May God give me reminders of the goodness of his sovereignty from this season even as that sovereignty may ask me to traverse steep or rocky paths in the future.

Key Quotation

His plans were much better than mine. That truth gives me peace for the uncertainty of the future.

Question

How has God’s rewriting of your plans given you insight into his character and his desire for your life?

Jennifer Holloran, Wycliffe Bible Translators