When plans blow up

Pastor Mark Jeske

You weren’t planning to spend all day in an auto repair shop. You weren’t planning on a connector flight getting canceled and having to fork out for an unexpected hotel stay in a city you didn’t want to stay in. You weren’t planning on another child, on having to find a job again, on having to be single again so soon.

Life happens. We try so hard to be organized and control things, but our plans sometimes just blow up. Paul had a wonderful vision of how beautifully his next Jerusalem visit would go: “Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there, so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and together with you be refreshed” (Romans 15:31,32).

What actually happened was that a riot broke out in Jerusalem, he was arrested, detained in a Caesarean prison for two years, and then shipwrecked. But God ironically did get him to Rome, and his prisoner status actually got him a hearing before governors and developed relationships in the Praetorian Guard in Rome that would never otherwise have happened.

God sometimes gets his best work done when there is chaos in our lives. Don’t panic when your plans blow up. It may just be a platform for God to do something significant. Keep your eyes open to see what he might be up to.

Devotion used by permission of Time of Grace®. For more information, visit timeofgrace.org