God's Plan

It has been altogether too long since I've had a blog post! With the craziness of midterms, and now being home for break, I've fallen out of the habit of posting. But I'm not about to back off my New Year's resolution of keeping this blog, and so here we go again!

I got an email today, with the advice that 'everything happens for a reason - and it was all part of God's plan for your life.' That got me thinking... and I'm not sure if I have come up with any answers, but maybe just more questions. I don't think we're meant to have an answer.

Anyway, the first thing that came to mind when I thought of 'God's plan' was the plan He had for His own son, to fulfill the prophesies of the scriptures, and to suffer, endure torment and prosecution, and to eventually be crucified, and rise from the dead. Talk about a big plan! But the unique situation that Jesus was in meant that he had advance knowledge of this plan, and since the beginning of his life, knew that this was the path he was meant to take, and that he would eventually endure unbelievable amounts of spiritual, emotional, and physical pain - and to face an agonizing death at the hands of non-believers. That's not exactly a bright future to face.

And so that got me thinking... we, as humans, constantly are praying to know God's plan for us, and wishing we could see where He was taking us. But do we really want to know? What if God's plan for me was going to be painful and difficult? What if I knew that I would face insurmountable hardship in the future? Would I still choose to carry out His plan?

Tough questions... when I thought about it, I realized that Jesus was actually given that choice. At any time, he could have prevented the pain that would befall him, but instead he made the amazingly courageous decision to carry out that plan, despite the cost. But would we, as humans, choose that same path? As much as I would like to say yes, I'm just not sure. So often we're tempted to choose the easiest path - to calculate our risks and make decisions that will most benefit us in the future. But thinking about the bigger picture, and putting the greatest good ahead of our own personal good is much more difficult to do.

So maybe, by concealing His plan for us, God is doing us a favor. We instead have the gift of being able to live each day as it comes to us - without worrying about the difficult times we will face in the future. Maybe there's some things we'd rather not know now.