Word of the Week: Plans

I’m good at making plans – but not always at sticking to them. I had sweet tea with my lunch yesterday and decided I would only have one cup. Two was too much sugar and it would bother me later. But as I slurped up the last bit from my straw, I decided to abandon my plan and get a refill anyway. What’s the worst that could happen? And, sure enough, I was fidgety later.

Do you know what that’s like? Your budget says this much, but when you see a good deal you end up spending more than you’ve planned. You’ve resolved never to agree to that again and somehow it still found a way on your schedule. Even our best laid plans fall apart sometimes.

I’m reading my way through the Gospel of Matthew and, at the very beginning, Matthew tells us that God is different from us in an important way: His plans never fall apart. God doesn’t even waver. Matthew 1:1 says, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” That might sound like a strange way to make a point, but humor me for a second. To sum things up quickly, the Old Testament promises that God would bring salvation through the line of Abraham and through the line of David. Sin made all things wrong, but God was going to make all things right. That was God’s plan and Matthew is telling us that everything is going according to plan. Everything. In Jesus Christ, all the blessings of Abraham and all the hopes of David find their resolution.

If you’re like me, you can’t remember a week where everything went according to plan. It can be stressful, right? You can rest easy, Christian. God is in control and his plans never fail. The Father sent his Son to save us, just as he planned. Jesus died and rose again, just like he planned. That means we can trust that he’ll return and make all things new, just like he planned. So much of our life is out of our control. But our hope is in God’s hands and nothing is out of his control.

You can take a deep breath. Everything’s going according to plan.