When Your Plans Fail

How do you respond when just as it seems that you’ve overcome one obstacle, another one, bigger than the one before pops up in front of you?

What else can you do but fight!

In Hebrews 10 the writer speaking to the saints encouraged them with these words beginning in vs. 32

³²Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. ³³Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. ³⁴You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.  ³⁵So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. ³⁶You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. ³⁷For in just a very little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay. ³⁸But my righteous onewill live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him. ³⁹But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

The challenge in these situations is to keep your confidence in the Lord and persevere in doing his will!

I consider myself to be a very confident person, but like many others, I have a tendency to place too much confidence in myself, in my plan, my talents, my experience  and even my desire or determination. I can even place an unhealthy confidence in others.

When I was a kid, I spent the summers in New Orleans with my Aunt. All of my cousins were older than me and I trusted that they would never let anything bad happen to me. In their company I began experimenting with dangerous drugs, but somehow I was confident that they wouldn’t let me get hurt, that they could protect me from becoming like the drug addicts that I had seen staggering through the streets of New Orleans, faceless, nameless zombies, but the fact is that just by using drugs in the first place my confidence was already misplaced. It is only by the grace of God that I did not achieve that sad fate.

In contrast, the confidence we must hold on to is the certainty that God’s plans and purposes will prevail!

The fact is that most of us can be confident when we can see things going the way we planned it, but living by sight doesn’t require faith! Vs. 38 says, but my righteous one will live by faith…

And I guess that really is the hard part isn’t it… to live by faith. To be confident that when your plans have fallen apart, Gods plan is still right on track.

 ¹⁰ The LORD foils the plans of the nations;
he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.

 ¹¹ But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all generations. [Psalm 33:10-11 NIV]

In spite of the obstacles you see before you or even the ones you don’t see do not shrink back. We must not place our confidence in the flesh.

Even when the proverbial winds are blowing around you and the waves seem to be rising above your head, keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and you just might find yourself walking on water while others around you are still sitting in the safety of the boat.

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