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Original Christian artwork: Illustration of drawing table
with detailed plans for making things.
We are thinking creatures. Thinking and making plans are
not sinful. God created us with minds capable of
recognizing problems and working out solutions. The error
is made when we do not count God as part of the equation.
While we are right to plan a day, a week, a season of labor on a
farm, of buying and selling as a merchant, or on a production
line, we must also recognize that God may have other plans.
First, we need to be sure that we are taking God's righteous
standards into account. How are we treating the people we
work with, the people who buy our goods and services, the people
who live around us? How are we treating our own family?
Then, we must consider the quality of our products, our labor,
our services rendered. Are we giving honest value for the
prices or fees we charge?
The idea is not to live in guilt but to plan our lives around
the righteous standards God has already revealed to us in His
Word. God will honor some attitudes and practices while
judging others as unfair or "not right." If we are not
right in the choices and plans we make, then we can expect God
to intervene, correcting us. He wants us to care about the
welfare of all those we interact with. Much is at stake.
Not only in this life, but also in the next. Believers
must live as witnesses to the truth we have received from God.
And then there are the plans God has that we cannot know
anything about. Few of us know the day of our death ahead
of time. Few of us know when a society or nation (or even
the whole world) may be judged by God, or when He simply plans
to change everything around for His own good reasons.
God always works to make things right. It may not seem
that way to us at the time, especially if we seem to be on the
losing end of some major change. But God is very good at
making things right, and at giving everyone an opportunity to do
better. The Lord is not only fair and righteous, He is
also very, very wise in working things out.
We do not live in a very good world, even though there are many
good things going on in the world. This world suffers
under the curse of sin, as Paul reminds us again in Romans,
chapter 8. Everything beautiful thing in the world suffers
harm, illness, erosion, decay, and death. Nothing in this
world exists without a beginning and an end. No matter how
perfect or wonderful a work of art, a social structure, a
relationship or career may seem, it will always come to an end.
God has a plan, and in that plan we each have a little while to
live and work and enjoy whatever God has provided for us.
We can make all the plans we want for tomorrow, next week, next
year, but God will work His own plan. He will give us good
strength and wisdom and great skill for a season, and then He
will bring about the changes that are in His own plan.
My steps are ordered of the Lord. So are yours. No
mater where we plan to go on our little journey, God Himself
will bring us to the place of His own choosing. We will
see what He wants us to see and learn what He enables us to
learn, and accomplish what pleases Him for us to get done.
Let us then make all our plans with God in mind, and let us also
learn to trust His will above our own.
The above graphic may be used by Christian believers in various kinds of
personal witness, for church programs, and other Christian
activities. There is no charge for this use, so long as
the copyright/credit info is included with the image or a link
back to this site is provided.
To use the graphics on this site,
right click the image (Mac users hover the mouse cursor over the
image) and select the "Save As" or "Save Image As" and save the
file on your computer's hard drive. Images not saved to
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files), or will likely suffer broken links in a short time.
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