When Things Do Not Go As Planned!

Have you had some things happen recently that did not go as planned? My wife and I had a visit-the-family trip planned in December that did not go as planned. Our adult children and extended family are spread out throughout the “lower 48.” We were excited to do a whirlwind visit starting in Philadelphia to visit my elderly folks and all my siblings. We then were planning to fly to Phoenix and visit my wife’s family in Tucson and our oldest daughter and family of four grands in Phoenix. Then we were oN to Sacramento to see our newest granddaughter and of course her parents. To wrap up this whirlwind trip we were planning to fly to Oregon to visit our third-born daughter and family with three grands. Our commitment to visit my elderly folks started oN with are great family dinner after which we sat around the piano and sang songs of worship. The only night my wife and I planned to stay with my folks was December 6-7, 2024. I literally got to say, “good night,” to my dad of 95 years that night. Little did I know that he would go to sleep that night and wake up in the presence of His Lord and Savior sometime early on December 7, 2024. While I grieve with hope of seeing him someday, I am grateful beyond words that I got to worship with him the night before and was with my mom when we discovered that he had went home to be with his Lord. Over the years I have discovered that when God changes my plans and inserts His own plans in my life, though they may not always be pleasant, I need to treasure His change of plans because they are always ultimately better than mine!

Mary and Joseph experienced this change of their plans when they went up with Jesus to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover party that the Lord had designed to remind the nation of Israel of His deliverance from the slavery of Egypt. The angel of death passed over all the houses that had the life-blood of the paschal lamb on the door posts (Deuteronomy 16) and as a result Pharoah let God’s people go. This party was one of the pilgrim parties that all devout Jewish people, if able, would travel up to Jerusalem to celebrate. Mary and Joseph had done this yearly, so since Jesus was born, they had made this journey eleven times without anything eventful taking place. Luke records the twelfth time in Luke 2: 41- 52. Things did not go as planned! After celebrating the party and starting out towards their home in Nazareth in Galilee, around a ninety-mile journey that would normally take four days to do, they discovered after one day of travel that Jesus was not with them! Now before we throw stones at such parental neglect, we need to understand that for safety, largegroupswouldtraveltogetheronthesearduousjourneys. Jesushaddetouredtheir plans! It took them a day to get back to Jerusalem and three days to find Jesus in the temple doing His Father’s work! I certainly identify with Mary’s frustration in Luke 2:48, “Son, why have you treated us so?” The few times that our children got lost while under my care, I was not nearly as gracious, even though in my case it was a PADD problem! (Parental Attention Deficit Disorder!!)

I love what Mary does as Dr Luke records it in Luke 2:51, “And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart!” O that we would learn what Mary embraced when God changed her plans! May we treasure God’s change of plans—His plans are better! May we learn to make our plans using a pencil and surrender the eraser to our Lord! He will modify our

plans as He sees fit! Plans in pen will get changed as well, but we will experience less friction if we make them in pencil.

As we face a new year and all the uncertainties of these next 300-some days, may we treasure His change of plans for His are always better. Remember, He was willing to postpone His plan to rule the world as the conquering Messiah King so that each of us could through His servant-suNering on the cross might have the free gift of forgiveness of sins and life forever with Him! Treasure God’s change of plans—His plans are better!