the words that carry the hope

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05-08-10

Praise in the Valleys; or, My Thoughts on Plan B

I received an advance copy of Plan B by Pete Wilson in exchange for a review on my blog (from booksneeze, which is so great, by the way…you should check it out [I'm looking at you and you]). I usually hate reading blogs when people give reviews, but I really wanted this book and I really wanted it early. Oh, and Pete’s my pastor. And I like him a lot. Um, and I’m impatient.

A couple of years ago I found myself constantly asking God why life wasn’t turning out the way I thought it should. Plan B is about just that – how to deal when things are seemingly falling apart. Pete’s not stating that God has a Plan B. He is making the point that, while God only has a Plan A, we as humans often get to Plan Z before we stop planning in general and learn to rely on Him.

My life was a cycle:
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I had it all planned out. Graduate from college, get a job that paid me $40,000 a year with an awesome laptop and a company car, meet someone, get married, live happily ever after.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Move to New York, have a fabulous life a la Sex and the City and/or Felicity, get a fantastic and high paying job, help plant a church, make lots of new friends, meet someone, get married, and live happily ever after.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Move home from New York for the summer, get a part time job, move to California, go to grad school, get a degree in Biblical Counseling, start a new adventure. Oh, and meet someone, get married, and live happily ever after. Of course.
And even recently: It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Start dating in March, engaged by December, get married next summer, and live happily ever after.
That’s not the case. Honestly, it’s not even close. [Sometimes you have to walk away from what's 'good' to pursue what's 'best'].

This book and sermon series couldn’t have come at a more perfect time for me. Something Pete said on Sunday kind of slapped me in the face (he does that sometimes):

The reason you are so broken is because you gave your love and devotion to your plans and dreams instead of to God.

There’s that word again– broken.  Brokenness = in need of rescue.  In need of someone to sew our hearts back together.  We need healing, and we need a healer.  I’ve written about this before…and I talk about this  rather often.  (One day I might write a book about it!)

How many times was I going to plan something my way only to realize it wasn’t going to go my way?
How many times was I going to look at my circumstances and say, “it wasn’t supposed to be this way”?
How long before I realize that I am broken, I am not in control, and Jesus is my everything?

In his book Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr says:

I believe that faith might be precisely that ability to trust the river, to trust the flow and the lover.  It is a process that we don’t have to change, coerce, or improve.  We need to allow it to flow.  That takes immense confidence in God, especially when we’re hurting.

Especially when we’re hurting…yes.  Learning that now, this very week.  This very moment, even, as I prepare to go help clean out homes of those who have lost everything in the Nashville flood.  We were not made to live on the mountaintop, but praise in the valleys.

The end of Plan B says it well:

…trust that one day faith will win over doubt, that light will win over darkness, that love will win over hate, and that all things will one day be redeemed. I’m asking you, right in the middle of your Plan B pain [your plan B, NOT God's], to trust the process that is going on in your life. It won’t be finished for a while, but it has begun. God will finish what he started.

Pete’s book is awesome, and I highly recommend.  Especially if you like books that slap you across the face.  You should also download the sermon series “Shattered Dreams” that goes along with the book: