Plan for the world Part 1 - Natasha Woodcraft

Does God have a plan?

Sometimes it’s hard, so hard to believe. Things seemed much easier when they weren’t meant to be.

You know that old adage, ‘Everything happens for a reason?’ You know what it feels like when some well-meaning person says, ‘everything happens for a reason’ right after the most awful thing you’ve ever experienced has just taken place? You know they mean well. But you just want to scream at them.

Perhaps you’re feeling like that now. Perhaps Covid 19 has rocked your world (not in a Never been kissed, ‘You rock my world’ kind of way – classic chick flick fans will know what I’m talking about.) In a bad way – the ‘I’ve just experienced an earthquake’ way. Everyone has suffered annoyance, inconvenience, frustration. But many have suffered grief.

Grief because they’ve lost someone. Grief because they couldn’t sit by that bedside when a loved one needed them the most. Grief because they’ve lost precious time. Grief because of a relationship breakdown. Grief due to a mental health breakdown. Grief because they couldn’t see a doctor, so their cancer was undiagnosed – and now it’s too late.

mary pickford, silent film: woman looking sad due to suffering and grief

What reason is there for this? Those who lived through the World Wars felt a similar way (and they weren’t allowed to sing in church for longer than us.) Some churches were packed with desperate people; some were empty. Life changed irreversibly as many lost faith and society shifted. Where was God then? Where has he been during Covid 19? Where is he now, as we sit on tenterhooks anticipating the next War?

The adage ‘everything happens for a reason’ is meant to make us feel better. But most of the time it just doesn’t, because it makes us question God. Where is he? What is he doing?

Blind chance is easier to believe in. It removes the reason, and in doing so, it removes the question, ‘Why?’ There is no ‘Why?’ when there is no God. There doesn’t have to be a reason. Stuff happens. Get over it. Things are easier when they’re not meant to be.

And that makes it hard to believe. It’s hard to believe when you cannot see the reason, when you cannot comprehend the reason, when you cannot believe in a God who would allow that reason to be good enough. Good enough to justify the suffering.

It’s ok not to be ok

I cannot understand why you allow what you do: how things can be part of your plan and bring glory to you.

As humans, we need to lament. We need to cry. We need to justify. Our sense of justice is so ingrained in our nature that we cannot ignore it: we must weep, we must question, we must fight and punch, and scream, ‘Why? It’s not fair!’ Because it’s not.

And yet, the Bible tells us God is just, is in control and deserves glory. In fact, you can’t get far into the Bible without coming across the word glory. Ok, you can almost get through Genesis, but from Exodus onwards, the Bible is obsessed with the glory of God. Why?

Because that’s why we were made, we were created for his glory. The whole earth was. For our lives to have any meaning at all, we must view them within this framework – the glory of God. That sounds selfish of God, doesn’t it? To be obsessed with his own glory?

It would be. It would be if God were us. To be vainglorious is not a good thing in human terms because we don’t deserve it. If we think we are the best thing since sliced bread, we are probably a deluded hypocrite (unless you are a follower of the real bread movement and don’t appreciate sliced bread.)

But God claims to be the best. He claims to be – well, God. If God is ‘the being about whom nothing better can be imagined’ (The philosophers among you will recognise the voice of Anselm here) then, he is, by definition, both glorious and worthy of that glory.

So why doesn’t it feel that way? Why do we want to scream at him (as well as our well-meaning friend) and tell him that he doesn’t know what he’s doing?

Because he made us this way. He made us with an ingrained sense of justice; he made us in his image. We can’t help but look at the world and see it for what it is: Broken. Unfair. Evil. It is ok not to be ok.

BUT, Why?

If this world is so broken, how on earth does it bring glory to God? If he is concerned with his glory, why does he put up with it?

The answer is: I don’t know. And any answer I give will only scratch the surface of this issue. However, I think there’s a clue right at the beginning of the Bible:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:27-28)

God intends for image-bearing, fruitful people to cover the whole earth. This has never yet happened because before they had even procreated, the first people failed in their image-bearing duty. What do I mean by that?

We were made to look like God – to display his attributes: his goodness, kindness, grace, love, justice, mercy… But, we have all failed. Every single one of us. Yet, God still intends for that covering of image-bearers to happen; he is bringing about his original purposes for creation, despite what it looks like. Right at the end of the Bible we read this:

And the city [in the new earth] has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations. (Revelation 21:23-26)

Did you notice that? When God has finished his work here, and made all things new, the glory of God will be the light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into the city: the glory and honour of the nations. One day, those whose names are in the Lamb’s book of life will fill the earth and will fulfil their image-bearing duty – they will have glory. And they will bring it to the King.

It’s important for us to remember that God’s sight doesn’t just encompass this earth and this time. It encompasses the next earth and all of time. Right now, He is in the business of gathering a family, a family that will share in his glory in the world to come.

This world isn’t fair. It doesn’t make sense. But we are not living for this world alone.

The best is yet to come

For you have a plan for the world, and it won’t be long until you return and the earth erupts into song. You’ll sweep away evil, your people will be set free. The earth will be new, and you’ll reign for eternity.

The Christian life gives us hope. But it doesn’t always give us answers. It doesn’t always make sense. And often, it doesn’t make life easier. The only thing that makes sense of everything in the ‘now’ is the hope of what is to come. Otherwise, we are to be pitied as poor misguided people relying on religion to be our opiate against the world’s evils:

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:19)

So, where do all these ramblings leave us? With a song.

plan for the world

“My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.”

Psalm 119:50

I wrote Plan for the World when I was experiencing the hardest trial of my life. I didn’t get it; it didn’t make sense. I didn’t know what God was doing. I was struggling to trust him. I’d grown up in a Christian home, but I’d not had any significant ‘experiences’ of God like some of my friends had: I’ve never seen a vision, spoken in tongues or felt the overwhelming presence of the Holy Spirit.

I thought that left me at a disadvantage. Because I had no tangible ‘proof’ that God existed, it would have been easier not to believe. Yet, I couldn’t admit this. I had spent a lifetime pushing through my doubts and singing ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness’ even when I didn’t see or feel any of that faithfulness. I had kept a smile plastered on my face when inside, I was a mess.

So, what did I choose to do, when life was stripped bare?
Help me, O Lord, to trust.
Help me, O Lord, to just
Love You.

This song was my prayer. I had no strength left in myself; I had no experiences to call on. I had nothing except a blind belief that Jesus was still somehow, despite everything, my rock. I’m not sure I loved him right then, but I wanted to. My favourite verse in the Bible is Mark 9:24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

This song is that cry. It’s the cry I made to my Jesus when I believed but was filled with unbelief. Help me, O Lord, to trust you and love you, despite it all.

And He did.

And He did.

To continue the conversation on the next blog click here .