9. Master Plan

An excerpt from a longer essay on “The Discipleship of Discernment”, insights from a year of prayer and fasting about decision-making, God’s will, and living in obedience to the mission of Jesus Christ. 

His destiny-plan for the earth stands sure. His forever-plan remains in place and will never fail.

 Psalm 33:11 

When I started researching sending agencies and organizations, I put all of my information on index cards. When the index cards filled up, the information overflowed onto loose leaf sheets. The more I learned, the more I started to draw arrows, put boxes around things, and make diagrams. I’m a big time visual processor, I suppose. At first my processing sheets looked organized and inspirational, but as the year drew on, they became messier and cluttered. Too much information crammed into every margin and crevice. Looking at my processing artwork made me both impressed and stressed. 

Inspired by Hezekiah who, when he received a threatening letter, spread it out before the Lord, I got out all my notecards and processing sheets on one day of fasting and I spread literally spread them all out on my bedroom floor before the Lord in prayer. 

With my eyes closed, I asked the Lord what to do, just like Hezekiah. The Lord gave me a picture of what was happening at the heart level. I was before the drawing board with the Lord. I placed my cards in front of him and explained what I had gathered. I gave him a nice presentation and waited for his response. 

In the most loving and gracious manner, he laid his arm out flat on the table and swept all of my index cards to the very edge of the drawing board. He took out a giant scroll and rolled it out on the table, and when he pressed it flat with his hands, it covered the entire surface. 

This is my plan, He said.

I was in awe. It was beautiful, and I was swept away in a glorious understanding that God was working a plan so much bigger than my index cards. 

I don’t remember what was on his big scroll, except that the entire background of the whole tapestry was a map of the world. 

He reached underneath the scroll and found my index cards. They were not lost, they were just much smaller than I remembered. In fact, they were about the size of the smallest LEGO pieces. He divided them up and placed them on different parts of the plan. The pieces fit, but didn’t draw my attention away from the bigger picture. 

I’ve put all my thoughts and energy into the wrong plan, I breathed to myself. My index cards aren’t even a plan at all, they are just useful pieces in God’s greater plan. 

I opened my eyes and it changed the way I looked at my processing sheets, my process, and the decision itself. All of that didn’t become insignificant, it was just removed from the center. It became a smaller piece in a larger plan, and I found my heart waking up to a wider space. 

Although I would need to do it again and again, this was the original surrender of my need to figure things out, plan ahead, make sense of the information, and make an informed decision. I trusted God’s power to execute his master plan, which meant entrusting him with my little pieces as I gazed at the larger picture.