Making Plans
One of my favorite movies is The Sound of Music. Maria's free-spirited love of God and others inspires me. As she's leaving the abbey, she murmurs, "When the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window." It's a bright, optimistic idea. It sounds like it could be one of the Proverbs. But it isn't actually in the Bible.
Eleven times in Romans, Paul addresses them as "brothers and sisters" or as "friends." It's how Jesus talked about his disciples, "For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Matthew 12:50). It seems strange to think of strangers as family. But when I've met Christians around the world, whether in Honduras, France, or South Africa, we've mutually recognized that we belong to the same family. As a missionary and church planter, Paul knew firsthand that anyone, whether male or female, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, could by God's grace become his brother or sister (Galatians 3:28). I once had a friend who didn't make plans. She told me, "I just wait for Jesus to tell me what to do." I didn't know how that worked on a moment-to-moment basis, but I also didn't know what to tell her. Paul was not too spiritual to make plans. He tells them that he "often planned" to come to Rome. Following Jesus does not mean that we have to spiritualize everything. Rather, it's compatible with living a fully human life. Paul kept making plans to come to Rome even after he was repeatedly prevented from making the journey. He doesn't say that God closed a door and opened a window. He tried to do something and couldn't. I've made many ministry plans that never worked out, and sometimes I wonder if I'm a failure for not doing what I had planned. So I'm encouraged that God's handpicked apostle sometimes couldn't do what he had planned to do for God. God revealed the good news about his Son to Paul. But that doesn't mean that God reveals all the details of our lives in advance. So like Paul, we make the best plans we can, knowing that they won't all work out. And as Christians, when we can, we want to prioritize seeing our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Has anyone ever told you, "When God closes a door, he opens a window"? Did it help?
How have you felt the tension between making plans for God and waiting for God to guide you?
Have you ever experienced meeting a new Christian and feeling like you're family? If so, what was that like?
Ask God, "Who is one person I should make a plan to spend time with?" Whether you get an answer from God or not, reach out to your brother or sister in Christ, and see if you can get together soon.