Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Shatter Your Plans on the Floor

"Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Tower of Babel (Vienna) - Google Art Project - edited"
I would not have chosen to do it this way. I never really wanted to be a Physician Assistant. It should have never occurred to me to use medical training to fulfill the Great Commission, yet it did. I had no plans for anything apart from making a living, raising some kids and watching some hockey on my days off.

I did not aspire to leave my firefighting job after working so hard to land it. I did not want to turn down a flight medic position (a job I had dreamed of since I was a teenager). I did not wake up one morning and just decide that it would be in my best interest to quit my career as a paramedic so that I could live on a fraction of the pay, live out of a suitcase for two years while my family barely scraped by a hundred miles away. I never considered that it would be this great idea to miss four solid months of work due to debilitating and paralyzing illness and injury during my rookie year of being a PA. I did not decide that it was best for me to go to rural Haiti, travelling on rocky mountain back roads in an SUV a month after spinal surgery. I did not conclude to have such financial insecurity in my first year as a PA.

My Tower of Babel (and we all have one) crumbled, as they always do. Apparently some people build more sturdy towers than me, because the second I place one brick on top of another, it seems, God knocks it over. I suppose (and I am) thankful that He does. I'm learning to not ask why. And I don't look at it as if I'm being bullied.



Here's how the story goes down: Some guys want to build a city and tower that would reach the heavens and unite the world. Literally, they said "...so that we can make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:4)

That's all well and good, right? Nope. Not for God's people. Who do we as His adopted children exalt in our efforts, our accomplishments, our life goals? GOD. Yahweh!

I'm not saying that I've failed at anything (of course I've failed at lot's of stuff) but what I'm saying is that God is at work. He sets my path straight. When I focus on my own schemes and dreams, I tend to look away from the perfect plan of God because what I want is, more often than not, quite self-serving.

If we seek the Lord's Kingdom, that tendency to pursue more self-exalting things becomes less and less of a burden. As we seek to exalt the Lord in our lives, our struggles and troubles and failures, and hardships and set-backs adn even our tragedies begin to make more sense. Of course there are many "why?" questions that will never be answered. I think one of the primary functions of this faith is to eliminate the need to have our "why's" and answered and just continue on, enduring for His glory, even when our plans fall to pieces.

What do you think? I'd love to hear from you and your ideas.

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