Plan "A," Plan "B," Plan "C" . . .

For those of you longing for spring and the end of all things wintery, please indulge me just once more.  For those of you tired of my curling stories and sermon illustrations, please indulge me just once more.  There is a point to this.  (Beyond trying to get everyone to love curling, I mean.)

The plan was to take out an opposition stone and then use the ricochet to sit behind a guard.  The target was fairly well exposed.  It was (theoretically) an easy shot.  If I made the shot, we would steal one point with our stone well protected behind guards.

I line up my hips and shoulders square to the target.  I snuggle into the hack.  I go through my mental checklist to help me come out straight and with the correct weight for the shot.  The slide out of the hack is smooth and balanced.  “This is going to be a good shot,” I think to myself.  

And then brain freeze.

For some strange, unknown reason, I turn the handle of the stone the wrong way (which also means I had it the wrong way when I was in the hack).  Instead of curling to the right to take out the target stone, it curls to the left toward unsurveilled territory.  A potential disaster.  So much for Plan A.

It isn’t too difficult to see the life-related analogy.  We make all the preparations necessary.  The issue before us seems to be well in hand.  The solution is obvious.  We are ready.  We set our sights on the goal and initiate our plan only to discover a serious, unanticipated flaw.  Suddenly, instead of a neatly tucked away solution we have a new, complicated mess.  We are worse off than before.  

There could be any number of emotional responses to this:  annoyance, shame, guilt, fear of the next round of consequences;  the list could be pretty long.  I’m sure we can each contribute another idea or two from personal experience.  When the failure of “Plan A” is in the context of a major life event, we can struggle to maintain our perspective and hope.  When a plan fails - and especially when we are convinced that we contributed to its failure - the stress and panic can overwhelm us.  

When “Plan A” fails, we need to remember that our responsibility toward God is that of faithfulness, not “success.”  As God’s image-bearers, we are tasked with the duties of stewardship and representation.  The outcomes are in God’s hands.  Admittedly though, sometimes “Plan A” collapses because we have not been faithful in our image-bearing responsibility.  There is even good news on that issue:  first, God assures us that His grace and forgiveness are always extended when we ask.  Second, our limitations - whatever they may be - do not place limits on God.

When “Plan A” fails, we need to remember that God is still working all things “according to the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11).  Somehow, because God is God and we are not, His eternal plan is being accomplished in spite of us AND through us.  I can’t explain that.  I can’t resolve the tension between His sovereignty and my ability to make decisions for which I’m accountable.  If I could understand it, God would be just like me.  He isn’t.  I can never block His eternal plan.

So, what happened on Friday night on the ice?  Strangely enough, my “Plan A” shot turned into a pretty good “Plan B.”  I missed the stone I intended to hit, but my stone did bounce off another opposition stone, and then another, and then another.  Three ricochets in total, leaving me stealing three points instead of just one.    Both my own teammates and the other team were laughing - we never could have drawn up the “Plan B,” Plan C,” and “Plan D” that occurred.  The vice from the other team even gave me a high-five because it was so bizarre.

In life, all the “Plan A” misadventures are part of a larger divine plan.  As we have seen in our study of prayer, God’s eternal plan is being accomplished even when the circumstances around us would suggest otherwise.  Prayer enables us to express our confusion to God and to remind ourselves of our ultimate confidence in Him.  

We won the game.  I took a lot of teasing by both teams as we sat together around a table afterwards.  And on Saturday morning, a small idea about Monday morning was spawned.  A life lesson illustrated by a goofy moment in curling:  God’s eternal plan.  I love it when God uses the everyday to remind me of the eternal.  If we look for His fingerprints, we will find them.