The Plan Has Not Changed

Have you ever been doing something, but it did not go as planned? You had a well-planned out strategy for achieving an objective. But somewhere along the line, things began to go sideways, and you needed to come up with an alternative strategy, a Game Plan B.

We are in Week 1 of the college football season. As teams prepare for this week’s game, their coaching staffs have a designed a game plan that focuses on their strengths while exposing their opponent’s weaknesses. But, when the star player goes down with an season-ending injury in the first quarter, adjustments to that plan will need to be made, a Game Plan B, one using a freshman backup.

You have a plan to build a nice retirement nest egg. But as retirement gets closer, you are diagnosed with a medical condition that requires expensive maintenance medication, leaving the nest egg smashed all over the floor. Now you and your spouse must come up with a new retirement strategy, a Game Plan B, one that isn’t quite so pleasant sounding.

You are just a few miles from your vacation destination, that much needed week of rest, and the long trip has been without incident. You can almost feel the sand between your toes and smell the ocean air, when suddenly you encounter a Road Closed sign, causing your blood pressure to rise, and forcing you to quickly come up with a new route, a Game Plan B, one that adds almost an hour onto your trip.

In the first few pages of the Bible, on the surface, it looks like God’s well laid out of creating mankind in His image (Genesis 1:26) goes awry when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden. The truth is God did not have an “Oh crap” moment and suddenly be forced to come up with a Game Plan B. I believe that God was not surprised at all. He had plans to redeem humanity even before He created us. Jesus says this in Matthew 25:34 – “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’”

In 1 Peter, we find a similar confirmation that God’s plan, despite an apparent need for a Game Plan B, was not thwarted in the Garden. He was not caught off guard. Here is what we read – “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He (Jesus) was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (1:18-21).

God is continuing His original plan of inviting you and I, and our messes, to His banquet table, to feast and to enjoy His presence for ever and ever – “You led me to your banquet room and showered me with love” (Song of Solomon 2:4, CEV).

So, as you see your human plans change, causing you to constantly be coming up with Game Plan B (and sometimes even C, D, and E), you can have the unwavering confidence that God is still working out His Game Plan A, one of redemption and restoration, one of reconciliation, one that has not changed from before the foundation of time!

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