Life on the Pasture

Have you ever found yourself doing some Monday morning quarterbacking? I’m not talking about second guessing some of the decisions made by the Packers’ coaching staff, but reviewing things you did the previous week and thinking you should have done something else. Assessing things is important, but it is also essential to move on and start preparing for what is to come, which is what I found myself doing today, including starting to think about a few months from now and the Advent and Christmas seasons.

No sooner had I started to look at my worship planning calendar than I stopped. Things have changed, and the game plan laid out months ago may need to be adjusted to fit the new circumstances. In-person midweek Advent services may give way to online devotionals. Crowded Christmas Eve services may have to be morphed into several smaller gatherings. And what if people just aren’t comfortable coming out at all since flu season will also be in full swing? And what about the special choir music and children’s participation? Once one goes down the Rabbit Hole of Possibilities, the possibilities seem endless. And what if the plans don’t work?

One of the most quoted passages in the Old Testament is Jeremiah 29:11 in which the Lord declares that He knows the plans He has for His people. I invite you to read the verse in its context: This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for Me wholeheartedly, you will find Me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord. (Jeremiah 29:10–14, NLT)

There are a few important points to keep in mind that apply to planning for the future: 1) The Lord knows all that the future will bring, and we don’t; 2) Preparing for the future in a God-pleasing manner involves prayer and seeking the Lord’s will; 3) The Lord promises to be actively involved in our lives if we desire that; 4) The Lord’s actions are always motivated by love and are for the good of His people.

Which brings me back to Monday morning quarterbacking and my assessment of the the past before preparing for the future. How much previous planning and follow-through was done with the Lord? And if I did things on my own, how did it work for me?

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;
Thou my best thought, by day or by night; Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

– Pastor Schmidt