No Need for Plan B

Remembering God is always on the throne

Recently, there was a proclamation from the government that negatively affected my family. Often, you see headlines in the news and your heart goes out to people, but it doesn’t really affect you personally. This time it did.

I spiralled hard for an hour straight, going deep and wide with my thoughts, trying to figure out what to do next. What would we do now? It seemed like our hopes for the future were dashed with one single decree. I started looking at alternative options, trying to figure out how we could continue with the plans we had been making for the last three years. My loving and wise husband eventually came into the bedroom and gently led me back to reality with the phrase: “Our God reigns.”

The psalmist writes, “God reigns over the nations, God sits on his holy throne” (Psalm 47:8 ESV). Over the past three years of waiting, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t try to take matters into my own hands more than once. When the delay continued, and it looked like God was taking His sweet time, I thought about pulling a ‘Sarah and Abraham’—but then I would remember their story and surrender my timetable and expectations once again.

If you haven’t read their story, you can read it in Genesis 15-21. God promises Abraham and his wife a son in their old age, yet the promise delays year after year. Sarah and Abraham decide to take matters into their own hands and ‘help God’ by giving Abraham her servant to bear a son. Essentially, they come up with a plan B because God’s plan A seems to be dead in the water. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work out well and creates a lot of friction down the line when the descendants of this other son end up becoming enemies of Isaac’s line, the son who is eventually born to them.

It’s easy to question God’s master plan when we can only see the delay in His promises. Why are You taking so long to act? I know You can do anything—why don’t You act on my behalf now? But when our minds start to focus on questions and doubts, let us remember this simple and profound truth: Our God reigns. “No purpose of [His] can be thwarted” (Job 42:2 ESV). No matter how long the promise tarries, how many questions we ask, or how we may complicate the situation by ‘helping’—God will forever reign. Trust Him. He loves you.