God’s Best Plans
Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. - Proverbs 19:21
When we treasure God’s purposes, we can trust His plans. In 1981, one of the most unfortunate structural catastrophes took place in Kansas City at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. During the first year of the hotel’s grand opening, an extravagant tea dance was held in the atrium. Over 1,500 guests were present at the luxurious new hotel that boasted three breathtaking walkways suspended from the ceiling; this allowed guests to get a bird’s eye view of the tea dance below. To the unsuspecting guests, the 120 feet of suspended walkway looked safe. To expert engineers the problems were shockingly obvious.
Instead of the walkways being held by the stronger ceiling support beam, all that was keeping them suspended in midair were small nuts and washers. It simply took the weight of 56 people to bring down over 120,000 pounds of steel, glass and concrete, which crashed downwards to the tea dance celebration below. This tragedy claimed 114 lives and was the deadliest structural collapse in U.S. history until the dreadful events of the World Trade Center some 20 years later. The achilleas heal of the walkways was not a result of faulty materials used, but a careless blueprint that was followed.
I’m guessing you, like me, have had areas in your life that have come crashing down. You have tried your best to implement suggestions that people have given, but they have not been effective. Is it possible that what you think are relational, financial or spiritual problems are actually a blueprint problem – a plan you’re following that is incapable of sustaining your life’s purpose? It’s that faulty design plan that has caused thewalkway of our lives to fall, and in the wreckage we have lost our way.
In Proverbs 19:21, God says that we have many plans in our heart. Although no one can see them, He does, and He knows if our plans are able to carry us through the pressures of life or if they’ll come crashing down. If our lives are surrounded by rubble, maybe we need to take another look at our strategies in the light of Scripture. By God’s grace, our faulty design plans can be traded for His loving purposes.
As you prepare for Sabbath, may you hold onto the promise that God’s purposes will prevail in your life. People will fail you, experts will fail you, politicians will fail you, but God promises and purposes for your life will never fail you. In the heap of life’s wreckage, we can trust God’s plans to carry the full weight of our worries, anxieties and fears. In commenting on people’s plans, Ellen White writes, “Even when called upon to surrender those things which in themselves are good, we may be sure that God is thus working out for us some higher good.” In other words, even when we give our seemingly good plans to God, we need not grieve the exchange; God is working out something even greater for our lives!
Reflection
What catastrophes has God saved you from because you followed His plan? Are there plans you are holding onto that the Holy Spirit is telling you to let go of right now? Write down the plans that God reveals to you. Beside each of your plans write – may God’s purpose prevail in my life!This can be a symbolic act of prioritizing God’s will over your plans.
Prayer
God, thank you for the calling you have on my life. When I treasure you above all else, it allows my heart to trust your purposes above my own plans. Cause the grip of fear to be loosed so that I can discern your will for my life. Remind me that my best plans can never match your loving purposes for me!
