When I was a self-serving teenager and my mother would try to help steer my course, she often said, “I can see around the corner. You can’t yet.” Oh how those words raked my soul. “BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!” was how that translated into my 15-year-old brain. She could see that my path was going to end badly, but I wanted what I wanted. Guess what I eventually learned? She was right. She COULD see around the corner.
At the end of the journey, and a lot of heartache to deal with, I found my self saying, “I wish I had done things differently”? I wouldn’t have stayed committed to my choices if I could have seen the destruction ahead. I should have trusted my mom because she knew what was coming.
Our relationship with God is much the same. He can see WAY around the corner. He can see things that we can’t fathom. In fact, He doesn’t just see the around the corner, He sees the whole map of your life. He doesn’t just see the map of YOUR life He sees the maps of some 7,050,052,989 of His children. One important piece of the prayer puzzle is understanding “He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Eph. 2:10).
He has plans for us that we just can’t see yet. His plans for us are the best (Jer. 29:11). He executes His plans with divine wisdom. “This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength” (1 Cor 1:25).
Sometimes when things seem like they aren’t going our way, we gripe and complain. We doubt God’s plan and maybe doubt if He’s even there. “WHY WON’T YOU ANSWER MY CRY?” is the plea of our hearts. But friend, this is when we need to gain spiritual vision. We need to stop and believe the truth that He is working out what is eternally best for you (Rom. 8:28).
Let’s look at God’s plan for Jesus.
Talk about a well executed plan. The bible says, “Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:4-5). God worked up a plan that took thousands of years to unfold.
After Jesus died, was resurrected and ascended into heaven, Peter presented the gospel message to a massive crowd assembled in Jerusalem for Pentecost (Acts 2). He said:
“People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know. But God knew what would happen, and his prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to a cross and killed him.”
Now in man’s folly that seems like a plan gone horribly wrong. Jesus. Dead. He prayed to be spared (Mt. 26:30) so why didn’t God come through for Him? If the Father will turn His back on Jesus like that He will do the same to us?
If that thought has crossed your mind keep listening to Peter’s lesson. “But God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip.” In the resurrection from the dead Jesus proved His total supremacy. He proved there was no other God who possessed power over the grave. If there was going to be a resurrection there had to be a death.
What seemed like a total debacle, a super-natural blunder, was actually part of God’s eternal purpose. If Jesus did not rise, then the whole point of Christianity died on Crucifixion Friday. If Jesus did not rise, He was a liar. If Jesus did not rise, there is no hope for me.
But He did. I believe it. And my faith in that truth has transformed the life of a rebellious, lost girl into something only a living-God could accomplish.
So the next time you question God’s plan or think He isn’t listening, remember that what you are going through is all part of His plan. For their to be a resurrection, there has to be death first.
