The older I get, the more I see how God’s plan is so much bigger than we picture it. Maybe it’s because I am in a different stage of life now, and the race has slowed down enough to allow me to stand back and observe. And perhaps also it is the testimony of older Christ-followers that are ahead of me on the path, the way their priorities and perspectives are changing as they go.
Our own plans are inextricable from what we need and desire in life, very firmly entangled in what we can see and touch. And our theology happily concurs that God is the Creator of all of this and is immanently present to our experiences here, obviously interested in the course of our lives and in how we grow. Jesus said something of that sort, after all: “…not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.” (Matthew 10:29-31) That kind of God– who pays attention to the minutiae of hair and feathers and all things falling– is surely concerned with the bigger events in our lives. It is an easy step to thinking that God’s plans must be similar to ours, about the days we live here on this earth. And it is about our days here, but only because His attention is so vast that it can encompass everything that concerns me with no effort at all. “You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.: (Psalm 40:5)
I wonder if– in our need to grasp God’s immanence, His closeness to us– we have lost some of our understanding of transcendence. Perhaps in our wonder over His putting on skin to come down to us, we forget how very Other He is, how the Old Testament prophets fell on their faces at His voice, and how Moses’ face shone with the light of God’s glory so that he had to cover it with a veil. People get a little spooked by such obvious signs of other-worldliness walking around in ordinary daylight; maybe it’s more comfortable if we tame our notion of God enough that He can fit into our own dreams and plans… stir our faith into the American Dream and live out our days pleasantly here. Or maybe it’s just the self-absorbed tendency of human nature to assume that God’s plan for me is all about my experience in life: my feelings, my needs, my hopes and desires.
Does it not occur to us that as people who will live forever, planning only for this life would be remarkably short-sighted? Truth be told, we usually can’t picture the Life After well enough to have plans about it; it seems more of a vague happy white space full of light and people we love. God however, has very definite plans, and they are all about that eternal future and our place in it, first and foremost the matter of re-creating us, bringing our souls back to life and into the kingdom of His Son. But that is only the beginning: “…you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple.” (1 Peter 2:5) A living stone, being shaped for its place in a temple where God’s glory will be worshiped forever…and my biggest concern today is getting everything done? Paul says clearly, over and over again “…dear brothers and sisters, we urge you in the name of the Lord Jesus to live in a way that pleases God….God’s will is for you to be holy…” (1 Thessalonians 4:1-3) The best thing I will do today is please Him, in dealing with the everyday circumstances of living here; this is His plan for me. “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory….” (2 Corinthians 3:18) These long-term plans are much larger than most of the things that concern us day-to-day, but they intersect the visible world in very real ways.
A long time ago someone should have warned me that God was much more interested in my obedience than in my happiness (although there is joy to be found in doing what pleases my Father). He cares far more about pushing me to exercise faith than He does about relieving my stress (although the more I trust Him I find the less I stress about circumstances). Too often I live as though He is here to help me out, to make my life easier. The fact is, our Father is still re-creating us from the inside out to look more like Jesus, and that shaping process is His primary plan for us. All the other details of life matter only because they impact His plan and influence us, and He is using everything that happens (the good, the difficult, the ugly, nothing wasted) to those ends. So even though I don’t completely understand that plan, it does relieve much of the tension over which car I should choose and what I do the day after next. All I need to decide is whether to listen to His voice and live in a way that glorifies Him, over and over throughout my day, every day, and let Him accomplish His plan in the way He knows is best for me.
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“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)
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“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses