Tuesday

"...For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail.  But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” Acts 5:38-39

One of the Pastors at my church shared this with us at a meeting last week, and it has been with me since (as it has with many others, I think)...reminding me that I can go ahead and make my plans if I want to, but if I am not consulting my God on whether or not my plan has come from Him or if He approves, my plans will fail...and miserably so.  And, even in the failing, God allows me to learn a lesson so deep and profuond that it changes my life!

Typically, I don't blog in the middle of the week.  But, I felt I needed to share this, and it couldn't wait until Saturday.  Much of my week is filled with plans for this and that...lesson planning, social planning, quiet time planning, etc... I wonder how many of you are like me in this...?  We are planning people...manytimes, without "our" plans, we feel lost and chaotic and purposeless and frazzled.  Plans help us to make sense of our moments in life, help us to put the moments together and fashion a day which then gives into a week...so on and so on...until we are stopped dead in our tracks because our plans are of men.  Ever been there?  There is a passage in James (James 4:13-17) that, I think, echos this passage from Acts:

James 4:13-17                                                                                                                                                            Come now, you who say. "Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit."  You don’t even know what tomorrow will bring-what your life will be!  For you are like smoke that appears for a little while, then vanishes.  Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”  But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.  So it is a sin for the person who knows to do what is good and doesn’t do it.

If God is FOR us, who can be AGAINST us?  No matter what our plans, if it does not accomplish God's purposes, it. will. fail.  But, if our plan DOES accomplish God's will, NOTHING can stop us!!!  I love these verses!  The context in Acts 5 provides the rich backdrop to this wonderfully encouraging truth.  We are more than conquerors as Christ's followers and there is nothing that can stop us.