Have Faith In God’s Plans – He’s Not Affected By ‘Murphy’s Law’

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(3) …we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; (4) perseverance, character; and character, hope.  (5) And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.’ (Romans 5:3-5)

It has been my experience in life that ‘Murphy’s Law’ (a plan never survives first contact with the enemy) almost always wins out.  Put another way, in the words of that great theologian Mike Tyson, ‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.’  Going a little deeper in this, as mentioned, plans don’t always work – most plans are almost never without some point of failure. 

Even plans where every technical point of achievement is met, the overall plan fails to accomplish the goal it was created to achieve.  Often in life, we find ourselves in situations where we want to give up – things just don’t go our way and the ‘juice is no longer worth the squeeze’.  We often strive for perfection and we end up disappointed to the point of ‘no mas’ and toss ourselves into a funk. 

You (and I) will fail.  We are imperfect beings, and our plans are never completely thought out to perfection.  Even the best plans can fail when the first punch makes contact.  I have spoken before about preparing for events – events at one time were somewhat unknown (except to God).  We now know we need to be prepared for pandemics, civil unrest, a push toward a ‘fascist-socialistic totalitarianism’ and Christian persecution. 

There are obviously things we should naturally be prepared for, like hurricanes when living here in southwest Florida.  Even with those plans that we execute routinely (too routinely lately, I might add), when one of these events come into play, we find the holes in our plans.  For example, we realized in 2020, the year of the COVID lockdowns, that we may not had as much toilet paper on hand as we needed for the temporary shortages that occurred. 

We all more than likely as of today have stored up additional toilet paper needed to get through a one- or two-month shortage.  But of course, what if toilet paper is not available for 6 months, or a year?  I’m certain none of us don’t have plans, or the space in our homes, for that contingency.

We may say, ‘we’ll use the Sears catalog or the phone book’, but if you’re like us, we don’t have phone books and I haven’t seen a Sears catalog in 20 years.  So, all of our plans will have things we cannot anticipate or the resources to achieve them.  We can only plan for what we conceive as being realistic in occurring.  We don’t plan for what we cannot conceive, or find unrealistic. 

In this case, we find that there is Righteousness in perseverance.  When we fall short in our preparations, we need to be over-stocked in the Spirit of our Lord.  There are typically two paths that people may take when faced with shortcomings in their preparations; the first is to turn to the Lord and ask for His protection and help.  The other path is to turn against Him and His people.  If we prepare ourselves in the Lord before an event occurs, even if ‘Murphy’s Law’ applies itself to our plans, it is never applied in the case of Jesus’ provisions. 

As stated in Romans 5, when our preparations fall short, or are non-existent, in a calamity, we have already completed ‘step one’ having turned to Him, and we can in confidence, in experience, and without doubt turn to Jesus to request His guidance and provisions through the Holy Spirit that dwells in us.

For the non-Christian, they may turn to Jesus for relief in such a crisis, but is their heart prepared for the likelihood that the Lord’s resolution may not match what we think is proper?  The Believer understands the Lord’s provision is based on His needs and Will to be done first.  Our suffering may be necessary to demonstrate Faithfulness, or provide Grace under the pressure in such a crisis. 

The non-believer, asking the Lord for what he or she believes is needed – and not getting it, may turn away with a hardened heart.  It is not the Lord rejecting them in not giving them what they want.  A person may need reliable transportation, if they accept a bicycle instead of an automobile that they wanted, they accept the provision provided.  If they reject the bicycle then it is not the giver who rejects the need but the needy rejecting the provision provided. 

We must have Faith that God knows what is best for everyone involved.  He’s not an online store where we can get it our way as we want it, but He will provide in the way we need in accordance to His plans.  Rest assured, God knows what will happen, and what the end results will be.  Where our plans falter, our Faith must support us. 

Perseverance must have Faith in God’s omniscience (knowing all that is happening and knowing the end results) and that God is with us.  We should strive to be the best we can be, to be the best prepared as we can be, but we must also have Faith that God will be there to fill the gaps when our plans fall apart.  We also must have Faith in God’s Plans, and that His Plan supersedes our plans.  When we include God in our plans, His Plan becomes our plan!