Missing God's Plan A?

In my sermon yesterday on Jonah, as sort of a side point, I noted how gracious it was of God to send the storm into Jonah’s life because it was God’s way of getting Jonah back on course. I said that one of the great lies that Satan would have us believe is that, because of our sin, or because of bad decisions that we have made, we can be off course in our lives, forever relegated to God’s plan B because we messed up God’s plan A for our lives. That simply is not true. In the message, I quoted from Reggie Kidd’s With One Voice a point that I posted here earlier.

Some have asked me to clarify what I meant. Do I really believe that we cannot mess up God’s plan for our lives and be on a second rate plan when we could have had a first-rate life? First of all, let me say that, in sermon, you can’t say everything on a subject. Of course, our sin and poor decisions have consequences. Yet, I do believe that God works through everything—including our sin and poor decisions—to bring about His will. There are a number of examples of this in Scripture. The most famous is when Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery in the book of Genesis. The end result of that was that Joseph became the Prime Minister of Egypt. Because he was the Prime Minister of Egypt, he was able to save his family—including the brothers who had betrayed him—from starvation. Their sin actually resulted in their good. Joseph summarizes it this way in Genesis 50:20 – “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive” (NASB). Does that somehow justify their sin? Of course not. Or, as Paul says in Romans 6:1-2, “May it never be!” Still, God is so mighty and sovereign that He even uses our sin and folly for our good. He is that big.

One of the best articles I have read on this topic is an essay by J. I. Packer on guidance. It is in his book Hot Tub Religion. Packer notes that modern evangelicals are extremely anxious about knowing God’s will. In other generations, this was not a primary concern, but it appears to be one today. He believes that “The source of anxiety is that a desire for guidance is linked with uncertainty about how to get it and fear of the consequences of not getting it.” While he notes that a desire to know God’s guidance is a sign of spiritual health, the fear of spiritual ruin through mistaking God’s guidance is a sign of unthinking unbelief. He summarizes the fear as follows:

God’s plan for your life is like an itinerary drawn up for you by a travel agent. As long as you are in the right place at the right time to board each plan or train or bus or boat, all is well. But miss one of these preplanned connections, and the itinerary is ruined. A revised plan can only ever be second-best compared with the original plan.

The assumption is that God lacks either the will or the wisdom to get you back on track. A substandard spiritual life is all that is now open to you. You may not be on the scrapheap, but you are on the shelf, having forfeited much of your usefulness. Your mistake sentences you to live and serve God as a second-rate Christian.

…The kernel of truth in the above scenario is that bad decisions have sad consequences from which we cannot expected to be shielded. But beyond that the fear described expresses nothing more than unbelief regarding the goodness, wisdom, and power of God. God can and does restore the years that the locusts have eaten (see Joel 2:25). Scripture shows us a number of saints making great and grievous mistakes about the will of God for them—Jacob fooling his father, Moses murdering the Egyptian, David numbering the people, Peter boycotting Gentile believers—yet none became incurably second-class. On the contrary, they were each forgiven and restored. This is how all true saints live.

This chapter of Hot Tub Religion is posted in three parts on the website of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The part I quoted from here comes from the article titled Wisdom Along the Way.