When God Changes Your Plans, Trust Him Anyway

When God Does Something Else: What to Do When Plans Change

I originally was going to call this article, What If the Lord’s Not Willing? but that’s not what was happening.

Lord Willing

Numerous people throughout my Christian life have taught me to say, “Lord willing…” when talking about my plans. It makes sense, and it’s based on James 4:13-15 “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet 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.” It’s an admonition to hold on to your plans loosely and to be led by God’s will. There is a problem with the statement, “Lord willing” though. What if it’s not the Lord’s not willing? The thing you want to do is good but God just wants to do something else.

Trying New Things

I recently wrote an article about trying new things. Well I was right in the middle of one of the greatest ways God has blessed my life through trying new things. Ten years ago I found myself suddenly unemployed. My position was downsized and after almost 16 years, I was out of work. I had just turned 50 and I really couldn’t envision starting over. My wife suggested rather than jumping right into a new job, that I try being a speaker. I liked that idea. I had done a fair amount of speaking in the past few years, but where to begin? After much prayer, I decided to email all the churches, church camps etc., in about a five state radius. Long story short, God provided. 

Haven Camp

One of the first camps to approach me was Delta Lake Bible Conference Center in Rome, New York. Their Executive Director, Steve Clark, brought me in to do a one day event for some of their senior adults. It was a great day as I recall, but what was more important were the discussions Steve and I had during set-up and tear down. Steve started telling me about Haven Camp—a camp Delta Lake hosts for adults with developmental difficulties. He really lit up when he talked about it, and I have to admit I was intrigued. I said “I would really like to try that.” He gave me a shot, and that shot turned into one of my favorite ministries—preaching at Haven Camp. I’ve been here every year since (except 2020, because, well, COVID). The experience has been life changing. I’m at Delta as I write this.    

Something Else

The plan for this week was simple. I was going to preach and teach a wonderful group of Haven campers for the week, and then finish out my week as the speaker for their Family Camp. God did something else. Saturday evening, a really destructive storm blew in that left us without power for several days, The painful decision was made to cancel this session Haven Camp. I don’t mind telling you, I was disappointed. I love the Haven Campers. Over the years, many of them have become my friends and this is the one time we get to connect. More importantly, they look forward to it all year. Now it wasn’t going to happen, but God was doing something else. 

Decisions, Decisions

My main purpose for being here was now cancelled. I live about 250 miles from Delta Lake. I originally thought maybe I could pick up another week of Haven Camp, but only one more camp session remained, and they already had a very talented young man already booked to lead it. I thought about going home, putting in some office hours at church, and coming back for Family Camp, but that seemed like a lot of time on the road, and a lot of miles on my van, and all around me were things that needed to be done, so I decided to stay and help out. God was doing something else. 

Let’s Face, It I’m Old

Most of what needed to be done was physical activity. Most of what I do in a given week is not physically demanding—emotionally and mentally yes, but not physically. All of the sudden I am thrust into some really physical things, and I have the aches and pains to prove it. At the same time, I have had the absolute joy of spending time with some amazing young people who have encouraged me and kept me going. I’d like to hope that I got to minister to some of them this week. I know they ministered to me. This week has been a blessing in so many ways. The biggest of them all was God showed up.

God’s Gentle Discipline

Now to be clear, God’s been here all the time. He’s even been with me all the time, but He’s been showing me things all week. The physical things I’ve been doing this week made one thing abundantly clear. I’m out of balance. You can’t spend seventy hours a week on a lap top and remain healthy physically. My aches and pains prove that to be true, but that’s not the only way I’ve been out of balance. One of the biggest areas I’ve seen is that it doesn’t all depend on me. I’ve been living in overdrive, trying to make things happen, when I should have been depending on God. 

No Man is an Island

My young friends have been showing me that no man is an island. You can do so much more with a team than you can alone. They really took this “old man” under their collective wing, encouraged me and even cheered me on. There is a long drainage ditch that runs down to the lake and this week we removed every rock from it, removed all the debris and silt that was in it and replaced all the rocks so that the ditch could properly drain the rain water from the camp to the lake where it belongs. Together we did the whole thing, and it was so gratifying. 

Lessons

In the process, I have made new friends, and one more thing. I’ve come to realize, alone I never could have finished that project. If I tried to do it alone, as I have done with so many other areas of my life and ministry, I would have failed. Even if I could have completed it, by the time I got to the bottom, I would have had to start over at the top. This is a metaphor for so much of my life. I’ve got to stop trying to be a one man gang. When someone offers to help me, I need to let them. I’ve got to learn the lesson I try to teach to others. I’m not responsible for all the outcomes. I am responsible for faithfulness. Everything else is up to God, and He is big enough to finish what He starts in me. 

One More Thing

Missing out on Haven Camp this week was hard for me, but I’m sure it was harder for my Haven Camp friends, so please pray for them. That being said, instead of getting whiny, I decided to trust God and that made all the difference. We need to hold onto our plans loosely and hold onto God tightly. We need to trust Him, and look for Him to be at work. In other words, when God does something else, let Him and trust Him. Romans 8:28 is still in effect. 

I wrote a lyric about this week and Suno AI turned it into a song for me. Check it out.