Unless You Really Try

"If you think you've blown God's plan for your life, rest in this. You, my beautiful friend, are not that powerful."

Never in my life have I been so glad to be weak.

Yet, this anonymous picture quote still doesn't comfort me as much as it could, because I know it's not entirely true. While I think that God's plan for each of us is well-thought-out enough that none of us could upset His plans by accident, and He certainly wouldn't allow anyone to throw His plan for the world and for the human race as a whole off the rails, I believe that God grants us enough freedom to reject, and thus thwart, God's plan for us, if we actively choose to.

Satan did that. I don't think God's plan for any of His children involved them completely turning against Him and banishing them to hell. Lucifer probably had a bright future planned for him, but by his choice, he threw it away. I'm sure God allows us the freedom to do the same.

God's not going to force any of us to follow His plan for us. We can opt out. However, I do understand, and agree with, the basic idea of this picture quote. We can't thwart God's plan by accident. As long as we're willing to try to follow God's plan, as long as we're willing to work with Him, no mistakes we could make along the way could permanently keep us off of God's path. Unless we are actively trying to foil God's plan for us, we're not going to.

I take some comfort in that. While I know it's still possible for me to reject God's plan, I'm sure that I haven't. And even if any of us do reject the idea of God's plan, His offer to help us will stay open to us for as long as we live, so even if, in a moment of darkness, I told God that I didn't want any part of God's plan, I could still change my mind and start following His path again now. God's perfect plan allows for repentance, and it certainly also accounts for the mistakes that we make, which is fortunate, because we make a lot of mistakes.

But despite all the mistakes that we make, God's plan for each of us remains intact and on track. God's plans aren't easily unravelled. It would take active effort on our part to effectively reject His plan for us. But I kind of like that we have the option. We're not so strong that we could thwart His plans without trying to, but we are powerful enough to say "no" to His plan, if that's what we truly want to do.

In my case, rejecting God's plan for me is not something that I actually want to do, so I'm grateful to hear that derailing God's plan for me is not something that I could do by accident.