Did God plan this?

Did God map out the pandemic and the election and the racial injustice and every other horrific thing that has happened in 2020?

If God did plan all this, and if God planned all the traumatic, disturbing, terrifying things that have happened since time began, then you have to wonder...

What kind of sadistic, twisted entity is God?

Planning things give life a sense of direction and purpose. If you can mark something down in a diary, or a calendar, or on a list, it gives you a sense of knowing what's next, what's coming, what you can expect. Perhaps that makes you feel more safe, certain, and sure of things.

But things don't always go according to plan. You might have to renegotiate, re-schedule, or start all over again. Sometimes, for all your good planning, the world seems to go to s**t, and you're left picking up the pieces, dreaming of the certainty and purpose your plans gave you before they got turned on their head. The tension, disappointment, and dissonance between the plans you made, and how it's turning out, cause frustration, pain, and heartache.

Ram Dass said:

"Our plans never turn out as tasty as reality."

Planning can be a form of control for some. It's easy to become overly attached to outcomes, and plan to ensure the result that best suits, is what transpires. That's why it's so important to note that Jeremiah 29:11 is about communal wellbeing, not your individual success. When this idea is lost, individual plans for success will come at the expense of others. We'll pit plan against plan in the race for comfort, accumulation, reputation, and endless amounts of more.

Theologian Mary Daly said:

"God's plan' is often a front for men's plans and a cover for inadequacy, ignorance, and evil."

If recent times have anything to teach us, it includes the loose, casual, and reckless way some pastors, teachers, and world leaders throw around the phrase "God's plan." Many plans have been outworked in the name of God, but have been anything but Divine.

Steer clear from people who like to tell you what God's plan is for the what and how you live your life, whether it be voting, how to handle a pandemic, what you do with your time and money and energy and love. God's plan for your life lives in the realm underneath all the material things. It has less to do with whether you study nursing or agriculture, and more to do with whether you are forgiving and humble and generous and seek justice. It's about you being open, aware, and awake to God in you, around you, and through you, and to what is happening in the world around you. The plans you make for your life, and God's plan for your life, are integrated and meet at the heart.

The writer of Proverbs said:

"In their hearts, humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps."*

This verse has been used as a kind-of override for the plans you make, to foster a dualistic notion that God's plans and your plans are two different things at odds with each other as if God will only establish your steps if you plan things God's way.

In the Message Bible, this verse reads:

"We plan the way we want to live, but only God makes us able to live it."

When you jump between interpretations and put this verse in the context of the communal experience of Shalom (peace) - the lived experience of Jeremiah 29:11 - it has much more to do with divine collaboration, a community of planning and grace, where God's plan for your has more to do with who you are and who you become than the nitty-gritty of what you do. It has never been a competition between God's plan and your plan.

This is a verse about integration, not a dichotomy of ideas about what you should do. God created you with a brain and a heart and a body and the ability to learn and choose and develop wisdom and listen and DECIDE. God gave you agency, you may as well use it.

It's all too easy to use "God's plan" as a way of getting out of having to make tough calls or scary choices or put our lives on the line. Or as Mary suggested, a form of wielding control over situations and others.

You were made for moments and journeys of faith. You get to plan your life. You get to decide what you do and who you become. As you make plans and try to live them, life happens. Plans go awry, and as they do, God is with you, grace upholds you, and you continue, you learn and you adjust and you carry on. God has already given you what you need to make you able to live your life. Your unique sense of self, the things that light you up, the way your blood boils and zings, the way you listen and speak, your talents and skills - they are all there. God draws out the best in you, while you do the work of living.

Mindful Prompt: Make your plans, but give them some flex. Imagine that they have the spine of a yoga teacher, able to bend and move with the twists and turns of life. Things don't often turn out the way you plan them, and that's all part of the plan.

Continued in the series "Did God Plan This?", this week with a subscription in the App.

Written by Liz Milani.
Instagram: @thepracticeco