I've always disliked the phrase, "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." The first phrase is wondrously true; the "for your life" part implies, "Come to Jesus and all will be well." Yeah, right. "In this world you will suffer persecution" etc.
For the non-Christian God has, from our perspective, a terrible plan...for the repentant, this short-term life will have difficulties of varying degrees.
- God’s “wonderful plan” for Christians may include times of suffering and persecution whereby we become more conformed to the image of Christ.
- The better, more biblical place to begin is to affirm that “God has a wonderful plan, period.” Salvation is not primarily about God’s plan for my life, but about God’s renewal of everything. It is only within the vision of the glorious new world that God has promised that we find the strength to cope with the fact that God may have a very difficult plan for our lives!
If you have ever looked at the backside of a quilt or a tapestry, you see that there seems to be no overall design or pattern. The quilt looks strange, without purpose or direction. But once you turn it around, you see how the individual patterns make up something that is beautiful.
Our lives do not always seem wonderful. But rather than trying to see what wonderful plan God has for giving us our best life now, Christians trust that the picture God is painting will be beautiful, so we look to experiencing our best life later. God has a wonderful plan, and because of his grace, we are part of that plan.
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