God's Plans and Our Plans
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
“Our plans and interests often interfere with our lives. We make all these plans, believing that we will never succeed in anything unless we arrange everything meticulously…This is actually how the world is. Things do not take place in a linear fashion, but together, and at once. History is not so polite as to “take turns,” waiting for one thing to lead to another. It is, undoubtedly the reason that all human plans fail in the end: we never “see coming” the train that hits us because we are too busy monitoring the linearity of our own expectations.” (Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Father Stephen Freeman)
“Having lost the religious foundation of early childhood,…people make every effort to establish themselves on some other foundation. However, for the most part, all these beautiful impulses and aspirations are no more than dreams. There’s a lack of will for really doing good, for overcoming sensuality, for renouncing fruitless intellectualizing. In the end, a heavy internal drama is created: dissatisfaction, anguish, discontent with yourself...Seized by this mood,…people become immersed in themselves, forgetting those closest and dearest to them and experiencing profound loneliness. And in this loneliness, they create the most fantastical, unhealthy plans for themselves. Neither intensive work nor noisy fun can disperse this heavy state of spirit.” (Hieroschemamonk Sergei Chetverikov)
“We often create all our problems. We build castles in the air and have our head in the clouds of our imagination, believing that everything in our lives will happen exactly according to this scenario…It is pride that speaks inside us—we believe that we “do everything on our own”, and at this time the Lord, through circumstances of our lives, shows us where we should go so as not to drown in our “dear selves” completely, quietly waiting for His children to listen to Him. Faced with the harsh reality of life, far from our daydreams, we are overtaken by another old acquaintance of ours—panic. “How could this happen? I didn’t want that… It was not in my plans!” But it was in the plans of God, to Whom we turn in perplexity, saying: “My God, You see what is going on! Help me! I dreamed of something else!” The Lord, of course, sees everything, but, as it seems to us, does not answer us and does not help us solve our problem here and now. At this point, no stages of acceptance help anymore; we refuse to believe in what is happening, we scold and blame everyone around us, and consider ourselves rejected by people and God alike.” (Ariadna Nefedkina)
“In daily life we are accustomed to being effective. We know how to plan our affairs, how to solve problems, how to appear respectable. But here, before the face of Eternity, all this “organization” falls apart…We are at a dead end. We look at the knot of our life—at tangled resentments, old habits, the masks that have grown fast to our faces—and we realize that we do not even know which thread to pull in order to begin to untie it. And this state—this “sacred bewilderment”—is the most important gift...As long as we imagine that repentance is merely a checklist to be “completed”...we have not yet touched its depth. True repentance begins where our human plans for self-improvement come to an end.” (Metropolitan Luke Kovalenko)
“I have had more than one instance in my life where my best made plans were changed. And yet, if I took the time to see it from a larger vantage point and perspective, the change in plans can actually become a blessing…God has a plan. And He has a plan for every single one of us if we trust in Him. And He will work every sorrow, every pain, every torment, and every suffering, for His glory. He revisits our past. Not only does He revisit our past, He heals our past.” (Jackie Morfesis)
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