It’s all part of the plan

Isn’t it strange how plans can change? At the drop of a hat, in the blink of an eye, your plans can turn on their head. And suddenly everything you thought was certain isn’t so certain anymore.

I planned to go to work this week, but most of this week I’ve spent at home. Working from home, yes, but it wasn’t what I had planned. I planned to have a meeting with a friend about drama on Wednesday, and that didn’t happen. And I have plans to eat dinner with friends tonight, but if I still can’t get out of my driveway by the end of the afternoon, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Plans change because we have very little control over the big moments of our lives. The only control we have is how we react when inevitable change smacks us upside the head.

Snow on the front yard cedar at Safe Haven Farm, Haven, KS

Today’s verse is Numbers 23:19.

God is not a man, so he does not lie.
    He is not human, so he does not change his mind.
Has he ever spoken and failed to act?
    Has he ever promised and not carried it through?

Our lives change all the time, mainly because we don’t understand our lives. If we could see our lives like God sees them, I think we’d get a different perspective on who we are and what our purpose is here.

God doesn’t change, so His plans don’t change either. His plans for us are the same today as they were when He build the foundations of the universe.

What we have to wrap our heads around practically speaking is the fact that even though our plans have changed, we don’t have to freak out about it. Because God’s plan is the same. Everything that happens to us is all part of the plan. There’s nothing that happens to us in our everyday lives–or even on extraordinary days–that God can’t fit in to the masterpiece that is the story of our universe.

Look back over Scripture. Can you find a time where God let someone down? Now, I’m not talking about a time when someone was disappointed. Or a time when someone thought God had abandoned them. Those times are all over the place, but those times are none of God’s doing. Those times are people giving up on God and choosing to strike out on their own.

Throughout the length and breadth of human history, God has never once let anyone down. He hasn’t once turned His back on us. He hasn’t once given up on us, although we give up on Him all the time. Every promise He’s made, He will keep. There are some outstanding, yes, but the fulfillment of those will change everything and the longer He waits, the longer the people of our world have to get their heads on straight. So I don’t mind waiting a bit longer.

Don’t give up on God. When your plans don’t work out the way you think they will, don’t throw your hands in the air and decide that God has abandoned you. When you don’t get to do what you wanted to do, don’t decide that God is determined to squash you or that He’s up in heaven looking for a way to make your life more difficult. That’s not the case at all.

God has a plan. It’s a good plan, and He will keep His promises. So when change happens (and it always always does), don’t freak out about it. When you find yourself face to face with events and circumstances that you can’t control (like a driveway full of snow and subzero temps that make shoveling practically impossible), don’t decide that God has left you to figure everything out on your own. That’s not the way He works.

God has a plan, and it’s big enough to include the unexpected changes you’re going to encounter. So keep holding on to God. It won’t be easy. And understand that change isn’t something that bothers Him because He knew it was coming, and that has to make it easier for us to deal with. If He knew it was coming, He knows what we need to make it through.

Even sunlight fails

Have you ever seen an eclipse? They’re pretty shocking, if you haven’t experienced one. For it to be daylight but not … it’s unsettling.

From some early morning googling, it seems the first recorded solar eclipse took place around 3340 B.C. That’s more than 5,000 years ago! Can you imagine what people were thinking when that happened? There are eclipses mentioned throughout historical documents and literature all throughout the ancient world. Again, thanks to Google, apparently there’s an eclipse mentioned in Amos 8:9 (http://www.earthview.com/ages/history.htm) that took place in 763 B.C.

Eclipses are something that people have been watching for thousands of years, and I can only imagine how puzzled people must have been when they first started studying them. But for those people who looked at the Sun as though it were a god to be worshipped, an eclipse must have frightened them. For all they knew, sunlight was supposed to be constant and unwavering. The sun was always supposed to shine. It would shine until it set, and then it would shine again as it rose.

Maybe there is some benefit to eclipses that I don’t know about, like for nature or the universe or something, but for all I can tell, an eclipse exists for one purpose: To demonstrate that even sunlight isn’t constant. People who worship the Sun must have freaked out way back when because when the object of their worship went dark for no reason at all, they had no idea why it happened. Granted, we live in a more educated culture now, so we understand it. Or do we?

Sun rising over milo at Safe Haven Farm, Haven, KS

Today’s verse is James 1:17.Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.

I’ve always loved this verse, but when I was a freshman in college, I learned to love it even more because I found out what the words meant. I took an astronomy course that year, and my teacher was a believer (it was a Christian college, but I think he might have been one of the only truly kind people there).

In any case, that statement “never changes or casts a shifting shadow” is actually in reference to the rising and setting of the sun, and the part about a shifting shadow is in reference to an eclipse.

Check it out in the Amplified Version:

Every good gift and every perfect (free, large, full) gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of all [that gives] light, in [the shining of] Whom there can be no variation [rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [as in an eclipse].

Isn’t that cool? The Book of James might have been written as early as A.D. 45, and the fact that we can find something like this in there is pretty amazing. Astronomical, maybe?

So what does this mean for us today?

Well, here’s the deal. The Sun is obvious. It’s easy to look at the sun and trust that it’s going to keep shining no matter what. And now, in our advanced and educated era, we understand eclipses. We know what they are, and we know why they happen. We can even predict them! (There will be a solar eclipse in May this year.)

But the Sun is part of a created system, something God imagined and made for us to enjoy. Now what our world has done is turned the creation into a god or because we “understand” it, we consider ourselves gods. But the Sun, as powerful as it may be, isn’t in control of what it does or doesn’t do. It’s a star. It’s an average yellow star tucked away at the edge of an average galaxy in an ever-widening universe.

It’s tempting to put our trust in science and the things we can explain. The things we can’t explain or can’t understand are scary, so we either make up explanations or we ignore them. That’s what we’ve done with God. I’m sure that’s what people did with eclipses until they could explain what they actually were.

An eclipse is a sign that even sunlight fails sometimes. Even something that we think is as constant as sunlight can be darkened in an instant if God wants it to be. But God doesn’t experience eclipses. He doesn’t rise or set like a sun; He is constant. And there’s nothing in existence that can blot out His light.

So if you’re out and about today and the sun is shining (or even if it isn’t), remember to thank God for the gift of light, but remember that light isn’t a constant. And the light shining on us is only here because God wants to be. But what’s nice to know is that even if the sun stops shining, God doesn’t.

A foundation stronger than your circumstances

I work in the plumbing industry, which is really strange for me to say. That’s my full-time job. I write articles and brochures about my company’s pipe-joining systems for plumbing and heating in homes, commercial projects and industrial plants. Starting out in this job (three years ago March 22), I knew pretty much nothing about plumbing. I actually knew very little about the entire concept of creating a building from the ground up. And I can’t say I know everything now. Honestly, I probably shouldn’t even say I know a lot. But I know so much more than I did.

But there was one aspect of building construction that I did understand and that was the concept of having a strong foundation. If a building doesn’t have a strong foundation, you’re asking for trouble. As I posted yesterday, Kansas is one of the windiest places in the world, and if your house isn’t firmly attached to something, one of those strong windstorms will blast through and take your house with it. It doesn’t even need to be a tornado.

But the same is true in life. If your life doesn’t have a solid foundation, the storms of life can rock your world. But they don’t have to be giant storms. Even little cracks in a foundation are a big problem. Just like everyday issues can chip away at you until you’ve become someone you never intended to be.

The barn at Safe Haven Farm, Haven, KS

Today’s verse is Psalm 62:6.

He alone is my rock and my salvation,
    my fortress where I will not be shaken.

Throughout January I’ve been posting about change and how to deal with change when it comes. And I suppose I should preface all of this by stating something obvious: Even if you have a strong foundation, life is still going to throw curve balls at you. Even if you’re firmly grounded, you still experience earthquakes. Just by having a strong foundation it doesn’t mean change isn’t going to have an effect on you; you’ll still experience it. But the strength of your foundation will determine how you handle the experience.

My property has a chicken house on it that was built probably in the 1940s. I’m guessing. There’s also a barn about 100 yards away from the chicken house. It’s a small barn. No loft. I’ve mentioned this a few other times before, but I experienced a ridiculous windstorm here in early November last year. That crazy south wind slammed into my chicken house and lifted it eight inches off its foundation, bent it backward and twisted it sideways. It’s a wreck.

That same windstorm did absolutely no damage to my barn.

Why?

Well, there are probably some other reasons, but I don’t think it’s wind break. Both the barn and the chicken house have about the same amount of trees between them and the open south pastures. Granted, the chicken house faces south, while the barn faces east with its side toward the south. But the strength of those winds should have shaken the barn up somehow.

My best explanation? The barn has a better foundation.

The chicken house was really just sitting on the dirt with some concrete poured around it. It was hand built by the family who first built our house, I think. In any case, it wasn’t exactly a professional job. Neither was the barn, for that matter, but it was built much later. And while I don’t know the state of its foundation, it’s a bigger foundation than the chicken house in any case. So when they face the same damaging wind storm, the chicken house gets bashed to pieces because its foundation isn’t strong enough to support it.

Foundations are–well–foundational. If you don’t have something strong to build on, the whole of your structure will suffer. But foundations can be deceiving too, because maybe you think your foundation is strong enough, but you don’t really know what it’s made out of. And you spend your life building on it, and then one day everything comes crashing down because you didn’t realize how weak it actually was.

Some foundations wear away with time. Or they erode. Or they just weaken. Maybe they started out strong, but as the years pass, they just wear out because what they’re made of isn’t a good enough material for building.

So if you’re going to build a life, why would you build on a foundation that’s uncertain? The economy and finances, human relationships, even yourself are uncertain at best. And if you try to build your life on those things, it’s all going to come crashing down. If you’re going to build your life on a foundation, you need to build it on something that doesn’t change. I know people who have gone through intense trouble. Deaths. Layoffs. Bankruptcy. You name a horrible thing, and they’ve experienced it. But in spite of it, they’re still standing strong. How is it possible?

Their foundation is stronger than their circumstances. Just like my barn, they have a foundation that is stronger than the storms they’re facing. They have chosen to build their life on the truth of the Bible, on the truth of God’s love, and on the faith that God knows what He’s doing and that everything He does is good, even when it doesn’t feel like it.

So check your foundations today. What are you building your life on? Yourself? Your friends? Your job? None of that is good enough. Build your life on Christ, the Rock that doesn’t change. And all that means is to make decisions based on what the Bible says. Live your life the way Christ did. And not only will your foundation grow strong enough to weather any storm, your life will change too.

When everything changes, God is constant

Kansas is a windy state. Many folks don’t realize that, mostly because many folks don’t think about Kansas. We’re kind of low on the totem pole as far as noteworthiness goes here in the U.S. We’re ranked 50th on the tourist ratings. Most travelers just drive through Kansas without stopping. And, yes, there are areas of the state that are immensely, ridiculously flat, but the whole state isn’t like that.

I love it here. I love traveling to other states, but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. But I tell you what: The wind in this state is nuts. The wind never stops blowing here. If we ever have a completely calm day, usually it just means that a huge storm is about to come crashing down on you (we have huge storms too).

Around here, especially in Western Kansas, the high, constant winds provide another outlet for generating energy. If you haven’t seen the wind farms in Western Kansas, let me tell you they’re amazing. It’s like you’re watching acres and acres of giant ballerinas spinning in the sky. I don’t know why they make me think of dancers because those giant wind turbines are standing still, but something about the turning of the blades makes me think of ballerinas. I don’t have a photo of them because the stretch of I-70 where you can see them the best prohibits stopping, but I’ve been tempted to risk it just to snap a picture.

Not just any place can host a wind farm cost-effectively. There has to be enough wind to make it viable. The point I’m getting at is that the wind is constant here, constant enough that putting a wind farm in the middle of nowhere is a good idea. If the wind only blew half the time, it wouldn’t be worth it; but you can always trust the wind to blow in Kansas. Wind in Kansas is constant.

Wind in the ripening wheat heads at Safe Haven Farm, Haven, KS

Today’s verse is Numbers 23:19.

God is not a man, so he does not lie.
    He is not human, so he does not change his mind.
Has he ever spoken and failed to act?
    Has he ever promised and not carried it through?

All throughout January I’ve been posting about change and how life changes and how we can deal with it. Facing change with boldness, facing uncertainty with confidence, is not an easy thing to do, but what I’ve learned is that if you can find something constant in any situation, standing your ground gets a lot easier.

I hate talking to people I don’t know. I’m know good at talking anyway, but holding a conversation with someone I’ve never met is very difficult for me. But if I can find common ground, it’s easier. If I can find some constant between us, we have something to talk about.

I love visiting other countries. I love studying other cultures and other languages. But I’m not a linguist, and sometimes communication is hard because I don’t speak the language and I don’t understand all the cultural nuances. But I’ve met family, brothers and sisters in Christ, from countries all over the place, and even if we don’t speak the same language or come from the same culture, we have something in common. We all follow Christ. And that constant gives us something we can both relate to.

We don’t say a desert is constant because the sand is always shifting. It’s different from one moment to the next. The shorelines aren’t constant because the ocean reshapes them. But rocks? Rocks are eventually weathered away by erosion from wind and rain, but it takes a long time. When we see a rock, we think about it being solid and unchanging. That’s the difference.

And that’s the difference between people and God.

People aren’t constant. We aren’t steady. We may try to be, but it’s our nature to be blown on a different course every day by the winds of popular opinion or anxieties or circumstances. And while some have grown enough in their walk with Christ to understand the importance of being constant and steady, we’re still human; we’re still vulnerable to the lure of inconsistency, no matter how damaging it is.

I’m not saying you can’t trust people. We have to trust each other. But that trust always needs to be supported by a level of understanding that human beings are still made of dust.

But God is different. God is constant. Like the wind in Kansas, He’s always there. Like the giant rocks on the faces of great mountains, He doesn’t change. Like an anchor at the bottom of the ocean keeping the huge ships from drifting away on the tides and unyielding undercurrents of the sea, He can’t be bullied and He can’t be intimidated.

God is constant. Completely constant.

He’s always been there. He’ll always be there.

Coping with change in life is just like any other struggle we face, like talking to people we don’t know or venturing into cultures we don’t understand. If we can find something constant to hold onto, everything else will fall into place. And God is the constant we need in our crazy, out-of-control lives. When you reach out to Him, He’ll be there. He’s waiting for you right now, arms open, hands extended.

Will reaching out to Him make your life less nuts? Probably not. But when everything around you is spinning, it’s nice to know that you have someone to hold onto who isn’t.

When everything changes, God is good

I know good people. They’re the kind of people I can trust will always do what’s right, even when it’s difficult. Those are good people to know, to surround yourself with, because they keep you honest and they usually experience good things as a result of their wise choices. Granted, they aren’t perfect. Nobody down here is, but there’s something about people who always do the right thing that is attractive and terrifying. You want to be friends with them, but you’re afraid of them at the same time because if someone always does what’s right, how do they feel about someone who usually ends up doing what’s wrong?

Most of the time those good people don’t even consider themselves good, and the ones I know certainly don’t. They’re just trying to follow Christ as best they can. And that’s one of the amazing truths about God is that He truly is good. There’s no one better. And because He is truly good, everything He does is right.

Lizard on a rock on a hiking trail at Glen Eyrie, Colorado Springs, CO

Today’s verse is Deuteronomy 32:4.

He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect.
    Everything he does is just and fair.
He is a faithful God who does no wrong;
    how just and upright he is!

There’s no second guessing with God. If He does something, it’s good. The Bible says that over and over and over again. So where does all the hurt and brokenness in our world from? Well, God didn’t create the world like this; He created it perfect, and we’re the ones who broke it. He’s doing the best He can with a world that refuses to listen to Him. If He wanted a world full of robots to do His bidding, He could have “fixed” our world long ago, but that’s not who He is. And those people who get angry at Him for allowing atrocities in our world would chafe against a solution like that anyway.

I don’t claim to understand everything. I don’t claim to understand God. Nobody can do that. But I would like to think I know His heart. I know what the Bible says about Him, and I believe the Bible. So when the Bible says He’s good, that means He is. The world isn’t good. I’m not good. People aren’t good. But God is. And He is working to make things good again for the people who follow Him.

Does that mean that everything that happens is good? No. But we’ve got to remember that the world is currently under different management than it was originally intended. God created it and gave it to us to take care of, but our first parents forfeited that right when they disobeyed, and Satan took over. Yes, God is ultimately in control, but right now Earth is under the governorship of Satan. We gave Him that right, but one day God will take it back. One day God will make everything right again. And until then, we have to trust Him.

So how does that help us today? Today we face a world that is more uncertain than ever. Personally, I live in a country that no longer recognizes itself. Like a rebelling teenager, the United States has pushed away from everything that is good and is striving to do wrong because we can. The rest of the world is already there, but the U.S. is running to catch up and the consequences are going to be disastrous. The whole world is running itself into the ground. I have to laugh about doomsday clocks and the Mayan calendar and all the other threats that say the world is going to end because the world is going to end, but not with ice or fire. The world is going to collapse on itself, rotted from the inside, trying to support a facade of self-righteousness that’s too heavy for something without a spine.

The world is changing by the hour, and most of those changes are bad. Or they will bring bad things, even to people who trying to live right. But because I know that God is good, I trust that He does good things and that He can take even the ugliest situation and make it beautiful.

So when everything goes wrong today, remember that God is good. We may not understand what’s happening or why, but if you’re a follower of Christ, nothing can happen to you that God can’t use for good.