Making Plans Open to God’s Redirection

“The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but deliverance and victory belong to the Lord.” (Proverbs 21:31, AMP)

I got married at the height of COVID. June, to be precise. We were engaged the November before– when the world was still normal. By March, when everything shut down, we basically had a wedding put together and almost paid off. We had a plan; from the DJ, the photographer, the venue, the wedding party, the dresses, the suits, the food– everything was set for our June wedding.

But like most weddings that were derailed by the coronavirus, it never happened. At least, not according to that plan.The best of our plans came to nothing, and I, like most brides of the time, was completely disappointed that my turn had finally come to plan a wedding and be a bride and It was not going to be what I thought it would be. 

I remember picking up my wedding dress a month away from the wedding day. I wasn’t even able to get it tailored or fitted with the boutique’s seamstress. I had to pop the trunk for the salesperson to lay my dress in the back of my car and that was it. I went home and was so upset that I didn’t even want to try it on. That was when my mom looked at me and said, “C’mon. We’re planning a wedding. I don’t know what’s possible or how we’ll do it, but we’re doing it.”

And the wedding we planned was better than the big catering hall one we thought we would originally have. It was certainly a day no one will ever forget, and it was the first time a lot of us had left our homes from quarantining. The joy and love was unmatched, and truly, it was the most beautiful day I could have imagined. 

So believe me when I say: I know what it’s like to have to let go of a well-laid, thoroughly thought out dream. But what happens when our dreams and plans don’t line up with what God wants? What happens when God’s will is for us to pack in our plans in order for Him to do something else? What is our first, knee-jerk reaction?

In Proverbs 21:31, Solomon essentially poses a situation like this, albeit in the terms of that era. When he says, “The horse is prepared for the day of battle,” he means that a warrior can be as trained and ready for battle as possible. He could be as prepared and skilled and sure of victory as can be, but ultimately, it is God in all His sovereign will that ordains where the victory will land and the outcome that will come to pass.

The training that the warrior does or the army alongside Him cannot catch God off guard or sway His choice. In fact, there were times in the Old Testament that Israel by all means should have won battles, and lost them; and other times where Israel didn’t have the numbers or the equipment to take the advantage against their enemy and then won by the grace and strength of God. 

The point of the proverb is that we can’t and shouldn’t hold onto our plans so tightly that it becomes a battle of will between our desire and God’s sovereignty. Even so, there’s no real contest. God’s will always will win out. We have no power to thwart His will. Thus, there is wisdom in not insisting on our way or attempting to have our own way through kicking and screaming against God’s plans. 

After all, our plans never amount to the grandeur and the good of God’s ultimate plan. 

Does that mean we shouldn’t plan for anything? No. It isn’t bad to plan, in fact, it would be foolish not to. There are, of course, times where our planning furthers God’s will; where our training and preparations make us all the more ready for where God’s plan leads us. We should not lean so far in the other direction to where we use God’s sovereignty as an excuse to be lazy or ill-prepared. Saying, “God will bring it to pass with or without me, so why put in the work or expend myself on it?” We see teachings on God’s value of hard work and readiness throughout Proverbs as well. For example, in Proverbs 6 where Solomon tells us to look at the ant, who works hard all summer gathering food so that her stores are full when food is scarce in the winter.

So, how do we confront our disappointment when God asks us to scrap the plan we made so that His can come to fruition? What do we do when all the work we’ve put in and dreams we’ve hoped for don’t become a plan we yearn to see realized?

It helps to turn to scripture and all the assurances we have that God’s plan is higher than ours in more ways than one. Proverbs 3:5-6 reminds us to trust in the Lord with all our hearts and to lean on His direction rather than our own understanding. Romans 8:28 shows us that God works all things together for those who love Him and according to His will. Joshua 1:9 assures us that God is wherever we go– whether we walk according to plan or He directs us into some uncharted territory. 

The reminders and assurances are all throughout scripture. And I think the more the Lord matures our faith– the more Godly wisdom we gain through spiritual insight and experience by seeking Him and putting away our sinful desires– the more we can start to rely on the fact that God’s way is better than ours. Because we’ve seen it for ourselves. 

God proves Himself to be trustworthy, because He is constant, steadfast, and Truth embodied. He knows better than we do and His will is perfect. He ordains it all, whether it’s a small, day-to-day mundanity, or our big, milestone moments– like a wedding, the birth of a child, a death, or a decision that changes the course of our lives.

Plans are good. God loves that we make them. They’re healthy and necessary for us to live industrious and full lives. But our plans should never usurp God’s plans, no matter how entitled we feel to them. True wisdom leans on the fact that we can make plans, but we should hold them with an open hand and be amenable to God’s redirection– and even replacement– of our own orchestrations.