For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. -Isaiah 55:8-9

I was going to send out a devotion that I wrote about the joy and hope that comes with Spring weather, with sunshine, and with signs of new life found in plants and animals alike. When I looked out the window, I realized that my plan was not going to work the way I hoped it would. Even half an inch of fresh snow certainly chills any enthusiasm I felt yesterday for the long-awaited Spring!

My plans don’t always work out as anticipated. Sometimes I think everything will go one way, but it goes another. It can be better or worse than I planned, or else simply different than I planned. In September, I had one plan for this year’s Adult Education topics, but by January, I had changed most of the second half. We needed to learn and do different things than I planned.

The Bible is full of stories of people whose plans don’t go as they expect. Adam and Eve eat the fruit, expecting an increase in knowledge to improve their situation; instead it damages their relationship with God and one another and even creation itself. Jacob’s sons expect that selling Joseph into slavery will rid them forever of a pesky little brother; instead God works through Joseph to save all of Egypt and his family from a deadly famine. The people of Israel demand a king in hopes of security and status; instead they get a line of mostly terrible kings who start wars, overtax the people, and turn away from God. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus thought that Jesus’ death meant he could not possibly be the one to redeem God’s people; instead, Jesus walks with them, teaches them, and reveals himself to them in the breaking of bread.

It can be incredibly frustrating to have plans change. Worse yet, plans can fail altogether. What we expect and what we get are not always the same. The more we hang onto control and planning, the harder it can be when we don’t get our way. 

God doesn’t act according to our plans, however. In fact, God persistently acts according to God’s plans, consistent with God’s ways and thoughts, not ours. This is good news, though: the passage from Isaiah goes on to clarify what God’s way is: the way of grace and mercy toward us. Often, we make plans that could lead to harm for us or those around us. Other times, we make plans as if everything depends on us, ignoring that God is the mighty one who always acts on our behalf. Isaiah reports that God promises that we will “go out in joy and be led back in peace.” Joy and peace can even be a change of plans from what we have in mind when left to our own devices.

I wasn’t planning on snow. Nevertheless, this change of plans gave me an opportunity to reflect on God’s unexpected grace. My plans can change or even fall apart completely, but God’s plan of life, mercy, forgiveness, and love will never fail.

Even if it snows.