According to Plan

“He continued according to plan…” (Luke 8:1 MSG)

Jesus’ life and ministry went according to plan.

Let that sink in for a minute. The divine plan included a teen pregnancy, an incredibly inconvenient census, a midnight flight to Egypt on foot, a childhood spent in dire poverty, an itinerant ministry with varying success and escalating resistance, the culmination of which would end in accusation, crucifixion, and the sun blinking dark for six full hours. The gospels read like a narrative gone horribly awry but we see here in the first sentence of the eighth chapter of Luke that everything was going according to plan.

Now turn your gaze toward the pages of your own saga. Does it feel a bit off the rails? Does your track record leave you a bit dizzy? Take a deep breath and recall that God has a plan and if we’ll walk surrendered to Him, we’ll always be right where we need to be. Not off the rails, not without a master map; still solid in the center of His perfect, pre-meditated plan. Just as God was deliberate with His own Son’s agenda, He is deliberate with ours. When we know that, we respond to the twists and turns in our story with grace and trust.

As the calendar counts down towards Christmas, take a few moments and recall how crazy that first Christmas must have felt. Mary wasn’t worked up about providing presents, she was preparing to give birth in a barn or cave. Joseph wasn’t worried about in-laws invading, Herod was turning this tiny family into outlaws. There was no room in the inn or midwife to attend the heavenly birth, yet everything was going precisely to plan. Could you imagine the nativity story in any other way? Borrow a bit from that scene and trust that your story is unfolding with similar certainty. Find a way to magnify the Lord in the midst of it.

“Like an open book, all the stages of my life were spread out before You. The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.” (Psalm 139:16 MSG)

Lord, sometimes it feels as though our story is off-kilter. Give us confidence today that You have written every page with eternal clarity and divine intent. Help us respond in faith, ever sure of Your involvement in day-to-day details. Amen.

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