God's Best

I read the introduction to an essay on leadership someone linked to this morning, alleging that in it the writer claimed to be a modern-day apostle.  Whether such a claim is made or not or whether or not (if made) it is true ("apostle" does just mean one who is sent, so it might equate to our missionaries--though obviously no one today could claim to be one of the Twelve) I don't yet know.  I haven't read that far, to be honest.  Maybe when I do I'll talk about it and post a link here to the original article.

What I did read in the introduction already had me bothered.  The below quote is just over 200 words, so my time at a publishing house tells me that it falls under fair use:

Israel could be spiritually lazy with a king. Without a king they all had to look up, even in recognizing the prophets or judges (leaders) for their time. With a kingship there is automatic lineage. Automatically the elders [sic] son is next in line to rule, control, and direct. Without the kingship plan each individual could be chosen for leadership. Anyone could be a Gideon found grinding out his grain when the Lord called him for action. Each man had to voluntarily follow into the battles. Under a king you were conscripted. Under the kingship program man was king when God was to be looked on as King alone. God wanted the fuller part. Not only is that more glorifying to Him, but it is more advantageous for all the people. But the people wanted to be more like the heathen around them. How sad, but of course God in His love still did great things in that situation.

We do not need to belabor the point. God still worked with kings in the Old Testament (O.T.), but it was not His best plan.

Israel had many years before they evolved into certain patterns that were not God's best. Like Israel, God's people in the Church Age have moved in similar ways.

--Leadership: Elders and Apostles by Jim McCotter and Dennis Clark 

To start with, there's some historical inaccuracy in this.  First of all, Israel doesn't seem to have lived well with "spiritual laziness" at any point in their history--whether in the book of Judges or the books of Kings, forsaking the Lord tended to end rather badly for them (not that that ever stopped them from doing it).  Second, the eldest son did not "automatically" ascend to the throne after his father.  The Old Testament records numerous disputed successions and even several outright coups.  The son to ascend to the throne was not always the eldest either, as with Solomon's succession (he was actually a fairly late-comer to David's enormous family, though he was the oldest living son of Bathsheba and David).

But laying that aside, there's the bigger issue of God's best.  That one applies to us today.  Here, the writer asserts plainly that the monarchy was "not God's best" for Israel.  It was "not His best plan," though "God in His love still did great things in that situation."  Israel started out in the center of God's A-Plan, it seems, but they decided to scrap it, get themselves a king, and wound up stuck with God's second-best fallback plan for the rest their nation's independent existence.  Poor Israel.

Poor us.  The writer's transition makes it clear he thinks Israel isn't the only one capable of doing this, nor non-Christians.  The elect, "God's people," can, "like Israel," move away from God's best.  We, collectively and as individuals, can miss out on God's plan for our lives and wind up stuck in some muddle of whatever He "in His love" can work in that situation (which, while it might be "great" will not be "God's best").

Think about this for a minute, because if it's true, it's frightening.  God has a plan for your life.  That's clear and Biblical.  "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139:16).  But if you screw up, you could wind up not living even one of them.  You could wind up stuck in some sub-prime life, like a homeowner paying an "underwater" mortgage on a home that's no longer worth what they got it for.  God will still love you.  God will still do good--maybe even great--things through you and for you.  But God's A-Plan for your life?  That's gone.  You threw off His plan and now all that is lost and you're stuck with second-best blessings, like Esau coming back to find Jacob stole his firstborn birthright.  Hopefully, there's something tossed in to the end of Plan-B that let's you get back to Plan A again, or you're screwed for life, sucker--and so am I.

I mean, what would it take to throw off God's A-Plan?  Apparently not much.  Israel managed to do it just by organizing a monarchy, like those of their neighbors.  God directed the appointment of the king and all, but God's A-Plan was blown from the moment they decided they needed a king.  Who knows what "God's people" in the "Church Age" have done to screw ourselves over.  What about Adam and Eve?  All they did was take a bite from the wrong tree and--BLAM--there goes God's best for all Creation (you seriously didn't think the Fall was God's Plan-A, did you?).  And since you and I sin in ways greater and lesser than Israel and Eve every single day...yep, we're probably down to the triple Z plan by now.  I know I certainly must be.

If, that is, we can move away from God's best for our lives.

Consider it from God's eternal perspective.  Look back at some of the language in the above paragraphs.  If this is true, if God's best--God's plans--can be derailed by simple decisions from our end, God is in a heap of trouble.  We all sin.  We all make mistakes.  We commit these things by the bucketload, and there are over 7 billion of us on Earth right now, doing nothing but throwing God's plans into utter chaos.  God must have a list of back-up plans long enough to circle the universe--twice--just in order to keep up with our shenanigans.  He must just barely be in control: struggling to steer us all for good while we constantly tug the wheel and nudge the car on to ever bumpier back roads (and into occasional trees).

The problem is that this doesn't seem to be the God of the Bible.  If there's one thing that seems to define God in the Bible, it is that He is in charge.  He is God!  How many times does He say that, in the book of Isaiah alone?  I don't know that I could count them.  What does the Bible say is capable of deferring or derailing God's plans?  Nothing.  The Bible says such an occurrence is strictly impossible.  "Our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases" (Psalm 115:3).  "Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps" (Psalm 135:6).  Indeed, to prevent Him from doing so, one would have to be greater than Him.  But no one is.  No one can stand against Him.  "The Lord of hosts has sworn:  'As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand,...'  For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?" (Isaiah 14:24-27).  Perhaps if we think our name is on a list that answers those last two questions, then we can worry about ruining God's plans for our lives.

Some may say at this point, "Well, yes, that is God.  He is all-sovereign and all that.  But you see, God gives us free-will.  Of our own free-will, we can sin and leave what He's planned for us.  We aren't greater than Him, of course, but He gives us free-will enough to upset His plans."  It makes for a nice theological argument, perhaps, but it still isn't Biblical.  The Bible does treat man as a creature with free-will (as he is held responsible for what he does), but at the same time it pointedly includes all mankind in being under the absolute, unbreakable sovereignty of God.  "The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps" (Proverbs 16:9).  "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord" (Proverbs 16:33--for all us gamers).  "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but the council of the Lord will be established" (Proverbs 19:21).  "Man's steps are ordained by the Lord; how then can man understand his way?" (Proverbs 20:24).  "The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes" (Proverbs 21:1).  Even evil deeds and people are not excepted.  The Lord intends Joseph's brother's evil actions for good (Genesis 50:20).  The Assyrian kings murder, slaughter, and conquer, boosting themselves in their prowess and the power of their gods--but the God of Israel says their boasting is absurd: they are like an ax in His hand and it is He who has ordained their bloody conquest (Isaiah 10:15).  Even Satan, in all his evil and rebellion, must ask God's permission to cause havoc (Job 1:12 and 2:6).

Certainly, the God of the Bible is in control.  He does not have a list of contingencies He has to keep striking off as we shoot down His favorite plans with our sinful antics.  He has one plan.  That is the plan, and unless we think we can arm-wrestle Him and win, that is the plan that is going to come about and is coming about even now.  The only question then, is does this divine plan represent "God's best?"  In answer, I pose another question: is there any conceivable reason why it would not be God's best?  Given what we know about the sovereignty of God and His love for us, He has absolutely no need to pick a second-best plan, no need to settle for anything.  He can do (will do, and has done) exactly as He pleases, whatever He pleases, and He loves us literally more than life itself (more than His life--which is saying something: as God, His life is awesome).  Does that really look like the bio of somebody who's going to settle for a so-so plan for your life?  He's God.  He doesn't want to settle, and He doesn't have to either.  Why should He?  So, if He has a plan for our lives, you can bet it is His best: His A-Plan.  And if He is the sovereign God the Bible declares Him to be, then you can bet that, no matter how many mistake's you've made, that plan is still in effect, still unfolding in your life, and hasn't even skipped a beat.

That's not to say, of course, that God has to relish every moment of His A-Plan.  Jesus clearly did not look forward to dying on the cross, but God planned this from the very beginning, even foretelling it right after the Fall (Genesis 3:15).  God is "not wishing that any should perish," but in the end He will cast into Hell "everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life" (2 Peter 3:9 and Revelation 13:8).  Let's be clear about one thing: not every moment of God's best is going to feel best--not for you, not for God.  Not every moment of the best parenting, the best marriage, or even the best food is pure bliss either--and I think it's intentionally that way.  God could have made a plan where every moment would have been sunshine and roses for everybody, but He didn't.  He made a plan where everybody got hurt at one point or another.  Yet He still made the best plan, and none of the hurts change that or shake His control.

I think, if we realize this--if I realize this--it will change the way we look at life and at ourselves.  If God truly is in control and truly is good and truly loves us (choose: "D, all of the above"), then His plan has already accounted for all of our mistakes, all of our sins, all of the just plain weird and stupid things about us we think couldn't possibly factor in to God's plan in any constructive manner: God has planned for them all, and they are all included in His best (He could have designed your life without any of these things, He could have prevented you from making any given mistake or committing any given sin: He chose not to).  Yes, our sins are still black, our suffering is still real.  So is the suffering of Christ.  But the stars shine best in the deepest darkness, and so also I think the brilliance of God's best is that He sets the glories of our lives and indeed of all Creation in the midst of inky blackness.  It is all a part of God's best for us.  Even our sins, God turns about in His plan to bring good into our lives.  Remember how the Israelites rejected God's direct rule over them and wanted a monarchy just like everybody else (1 Samuel 8:7)?  God used that to bring David to the throne, and Solomon, his son, by which the Israelites knew a prosperity they'd never imagined.  And God loved it.  He established David's line forever (1 Chronicles 17:2) and used it to bring Christ into the world, the ultimate heir of the throne of David.  If Israel had really drifted from "God's best" when they made that decision, you'd think He'd correct it at some point instead of etching it in stone as a part of the plan He'd made before He began Creation.  The truth is, they didn't.  God didn't like their rejection, but He knew it was coming, He'd allowed it to enter the picture, and He'd planned accordingly so that even Israel's rejection played right into His hand.

Applied to my own life, this is an immense comfort to me.  Satan is the accuser, and while Jesus came so that we could share in His joy, and have it to the full (John 15:11), Satan is the thief who comes in to steal and destroy that joy.  When I sin, he is waiting with a laundry-list of accusations.  At the top of that list is this: "You idiot, you just blew God's plan for your life.  Now you're stuck with second-best.  You'll never have what He promised now."  But God is true, and God is sovereign.  His best stands, and I can withstand the Devil with that.  Even when I haven't sinned, I sometimes feel like my life is on the fast track to nowhere.  I'm a college graduate here, living with my folks and working as a cashier.  Really?  Where's the house and the big-bucks career I was supposed to have by now?  What about the mission to deepest-darkest Africa that I was supposed to lead?  Shouldn't I at least be heading back from a Summer Infusion to a semester spent with my small group at church?  Did I miss a turn somewhere?  Have I stepped away from God's best?  Satan would step up in a heartbeat and answer yes, anything to throw me off, get me down, and discourage me in my relationship with God.  But God is sovereign even here, in my old room at home, on my day off from standing behind a register, and He has a plan for my life--which is unfolding even now--and it is the best.  This is God's best, and I will be able to see it as such in time, when everything has unfolded and the full skein of God's work appears in all its glory.  I can rest in that.  I can set my seal to that.  God is true, faithful, good, and in control, and this is His best.  I can enjoy that!

I hope you can, too.