If you’re anything like me, you regularly make plans for your life, but whose plans are they?
From a very early age, I was in the habit, on the 31st December, of making plans for the new year. My standard practice has been to take a long, slow walk, preferably alone, to plan, dream, reflect, think about some important decisions and even plot out a new picture book in my head. Those old year’s eve walks for me have always been very special as they give me some perspective for the future.
Having been a teacher all my working life (I’m still actively teaching for two days in the week to free up some space for my writing), life starts to crowd in with all sorts of demands like lessons to plan, marking to do, strategies to change, particularly with the proliferation of AI everywhere, I sometimes feel that I don’t allocate enough time for reflection, writing and considering other peoples’ needs.
But as I begin yet another new year, my biblical explorations have reminded me that I can make all the plans I like, but it is God’s purposes and plans that prevail.
Who am I to think that I can single-handedly plot out the course of my life, when my times are in His hands, He will use me for His purposes and He holds me in the palm of His hand:
But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. (Psalm 33,11)
So in all the pressures of teaching, relationships, looking after my health and the general busyness of life, I need to ensure that I keep focusing on God who ‘will fulfil his purpose for me’ (Psalm 138,8). I need to remember that any gift I have, has been poured out on me by my generous Father, that I can do nothing without Him, that I will be totally ineffective if I don’t pray regularly and earnestly and that I am dependent on Him for fruit.
When my mother was alive (she passed away in 2007 at the good old age of 89 – I had been living with her for six years before this happened), we had occasional conversations about the existence of God, especially after she had attended a church service with me – I remember the pastor being put off by the fact that she regularly fell asleep during his sermon.
She said she found it difficult to believe in God because everything was so complicated, for example, during all the years that the earth has been in existence, billions have people have died. How could a God know everything there was to know about all these people? In her mind, which was a very mathematical mind – she was a brilliant bridge player – the puzzle pieces about the world, life and people just did not fit together.
I believe that many people, like my mother, either find it difficult to believe in God or they make God too small. He is, after all, the creator of the universe! How can we, three score years and ten men and women, possibly understand the mind of such an awesome creator?
A verse from Jeremiah expresses these sentiments better than I can:
O great and powerful God, whose name is the Lord Almighty, great are your purposes and mighty are your deeds. Your eyes are open to all the ways of men; you reward everyone according to his conduct and as his deeds deserve. (Jeremiah 32,19)
I am really hoping that this year I will pray more, trust more, hope more as I take one step at a time, one day at a time into my unknown future. But whatever happens this year, I know that God will be watching over me, guiding me through His word and loving me every step of the way.
Whose plans? God’s or mine?
God’s overall plans for the world, for my life, so with the help of the Lord, I will venture into 2026 with hope in my heart and the knowledge that even in possible future daily difficulties, He will be with me as He has promised to never leave me or forsake me.
My prayer for you, my reader, is that you will feel God’s presence in your life this year and in the years to come.
