God's Plan ... Freedom, or Obedience?

Spirituality Column #87
July 8, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

God’s Plan … Freedom or Obedience?
By Bob Walters

Once when facing a particularly difficult circumstance in my life, I made the comment to my friend Russ Blowers that the problem “must be part of God’s plan.”

Russ, the wonderful long-time preacher in Indianapolis, looked horrified. “Wait a minute, Bob,” he said. “Do you honestly think that a billion years ago or whenever He made his perfect plan for the world that God said, ‘Bob is going to [have this trouble]?’”

In his nearly 60 years of ministry, Russ had heard it all, and he was clearly not going to let me blame worldly problems in my own life on “God’s plan.”

That God has a plan is certain – He sent Jesus Christ into the world to save sinners by faith and thereby restore mankind to eternal life in glory at God’s side.

That each of us in the here and now has problems, challenges and issues, as well as dreams, desires and aspirations – is also certain.

So … what is God’s plan for my life?

Well, that’s a tough one. The Bible is long on principles and short on specifics.

“Love God and love others.” That may be the best, most important advice in the Bible, but it doesn’t exactly order our personal steps.

“Follow Christ by faith.” If you don’t do anything else, do that, but you’ll find that faith without action is a horribly incomplete equation.

The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-6-7) is perhaps the best collection of advice in scripture – Christ’s greatest hits, if you will. Memorize it … yet we still look at our personal circumstances and ask God, “Why?”

The thing is we are each fearfully and wonderfully made. We are each unique. We are personal to God, no matter our sin or circumstance. God’s plan for us certainly includes freedom which is critical to developing love, but only when that love produces faith can we then obey God freely. That’s God’s plan.

I’m not obsessed with knowing God’s exact plan for my life, roller coaster that it has been. But I pray every day that I don’t miss the clues – when He provides them – about how to stay on His path.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) suggests that instead of always asking God “Why?”, it is not a terrible idea to simply say “Thank You” in faith and pray He will help us be firm in our next step.