Everyone's Got a Plan

Everyone’s Got a Plan.  “Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face” (Mike Tyson). I had a plan for this year, sort of a lighthearted resolution, but I got punched in the face. This was the year to dust off my good camera and carry it with me, resuming my interest in amateur photography. Many things last year made me regret not always having my good camera with me, like many unexpected Americana landscapes across all four seasons of the year, lovely old barns, wildlife, and still shots of the “sound of freedom” near the end of the runway of the 4th Fighter Wing.

Alas, I didn’t have my good camera as I drove to church this morning. For the first time in my life, I saw a bald eagle finishing his breakfast barely 15 feet off the road. He was impossible to miss, but I missed my chance. My dinky camera phone was inadequate, even though I turned around and pulled over. Opportunity lost: the blurry eagle image looked like a large chicken.

So, I’m starting off 2025 with photographic regret. But what will I do with this self-inflicted punch in the face? Will I freeze, quit, or adapt? Regret can be a huge motivator! I will adapt, optimistically, that my next fifty years will see another bald eagle in the wild, 15 feet away. Have you already broken a New Year’s resolution, too? Were you caught unready for the opportunity? Will you consume the rest of the cake because you already ate one piece too many? Will you crumple up your plan because you got punched in the face? No! The point of the plan is not to attain perfection but to retain pliability to variables outside the plan.

A plan without flexibility is rigid; it has a glass jaw to continue with the boxing phraseology. Or, as Solomon in Proverbs 16:9 wrote: “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps,” which sounds a lot like the Yiddish saying, “Man plans and God laughs.” A wooden translation of the biblical proverb shows its agility: The heart of man himself reckons his road, but the Lord fixes his life-course. God grants genuine though limited agency to us to “live, move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28b), but we do not exist in an open system absolutely. We are contained “in him” (Acts 17:28a). Based on the available data, wise and capable humans should make their plans, but it is the Lord who steers their paths according to his grand purpose, even when they get punched in the face. Punches do not surprise God!

Making a plan is neither wrong nor unwise, but worshiping a plan is both. In life, we should carefully navigate the landmarks and negotiate the terrain with advanced thought. But by faith, we understand that God moves or removes the whole map according to his good pleasure. God does not mock our plan, though he holds every right to mock our belief in it when it eclipses his sovereignty. That is why, whichever plans we might activate, it must be our primary purpose to know God as we are known by him, and to make him known by others.