We can trust the LORD!
Certainly my plans are not your plans, and your ways are not my ways, declares the Lord. (Isaiah 55:8)
Things happen in life that we don’t plan. To use a baseball picture, there are things that throw a mighty curveball. We can plan, but until it becomes fact, it remains a plan. Sometimes the plan is even abandoned.
Our verse today is part of a beautiful invitation that the Lord had Isaiah record for the people of Israel. Isaiah lived at a time when the majority of the Israelites were being “rebellious children.” The northern kingdom, Israel, also suffered from godless leaders, who may have been politically savvy but did not love or believe in the true God, the Lord. In Judah, some kings who served at the time served the Lord, but the people wavered between worshipping the Lord and the idols of the people around them. Many didn’t accept God’s invitation.
Even though the Lord knew that Israel chose to learn the hard way, he was still going to carry out his plan. Their rejection of the Lord would bring the loss of their land. They would be exiled, but the Lord wasn’t going to forsake them. He would bring them back so that his plan could be carried out. His promised Savior would come, and he would fulfill the promises that God had made.
We now live with the knowledge of those promises fulfilled. It is this assurance that helps us when life throws us a curveball. God’s plans are not our plans. Who would have expected that God would love us so much that he would send his Son to be our Savior. Despite our plans of rebellion, God overcame them. Jesus took our sin and paid the price. We now live with that knowledge that no matter what, we can trust the LORD!
Prayer: Lord, always help me to remember that your plans for me always include the love that you have revealed in Jesus. Help me to set my plans according to your will. When they don’t, lead me always to see that in the way you lead, you continue to work it all for my good. Amen.