Unwanted Suprises

In any given day not everything goes as planned.  The old poet who wrote about the "best laid plans..." must have been acquainted with a few of those days.  Some days the surprises start when the feet hit the floor.  Other days we end up getting broadsided by some unexpected and unwanted happening.  The truth is that every day contains more than one surprise and some of them may be so far from our plan, it makes the day look like a disaster.

 

The Apostle James surely had experienced this truth as well for he wrote in his epistle to the early church, "Come now, you who say,  'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.'  Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring.  What is your life?...Indeed you ought to say, 'If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that."  (James 4:13-15)   Certainly this is not a Word from God which forbids making plans, but a Word which reminds us that there are times when the plans of God for us will take precedence.

 

What we seldom call the plan of God for our life are our interrupted plans.  We talk well about how we believe our life is in the hands of God until suddenly it seems to be taken out of our hands.  At that point we begin to question the wisdom of God instead of offering thanksgiving for the way the unwanted happening, or interruption may speak more of His care for us than we normally take time to consider.  We can only wonder what disasters have been lurking out there ahead of us which have been averted simply because God threw something in our path to slow us down, speed us up, or send us another way.