The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men…

By Rev. Rick Shott, Nokomis Baptist Church

June 12, 2024

I graduated High School in Austin, Texas. Having moved around many times in my childhood, I decided to attend the University of Texas at Austin. It was close and several of my friends were attending there. I thought that I would actually keep friends, even have friends for more than a few years. The irony was that I saw one friend for a semester and in the end they all evaporated, each having their own life.

Often, our plans fail, the weather does not cooperate, someone gets sick, a vehicle breaks down; I could make more reasons and my reader could still find more. This is the problem: no matter how big we think we are; we are small. We are also temporary, as James wrote, "… you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." (James 4:14-15, ESV) In reality, we are like a mist that burns off in the heat of the day.

Now, this is not a reason to throw your hands in the air and give up. We are people, we do not know everything. The best-laid plans will fall apart once you reach a point where the plan goes against reality. We see this in politics all the time. A policy is made to make life more affordable, and inflation goes through the roof. A policy to make something safer makes it unaffordable. This is a call for us to think more about what will happen. It is also a reminder that we are not God.

The world will continue to spin whether we get out of bed on time or late. When our plans fail, it is important not to take it too seriously. It is not the end of the world, just another day. What we need to remember is that we are in God's world, not ours. It is a good world and we are blessed by it. It may be that from time to time our plans fail, and it is upsetting, but we must never trust in our plans absolutely. Sometimes, God has another plan for us to be part of instead. When a plan breaks is when we get help or meet someone and then a new story starts being written. My college life changed drastically as my plans failed, yet the new friends I met were even better than the small plan I had. It is the grace of God that my plan failed so that I could find His blessing.