There is the idea that god has a perfect plan.
How is his plan or actions perfect when his will is so commonly not fullfilled?
I realize that you will take it as a cop out, but I'm not so sure that any of us, in this world, could ever hope to understand the mind of God well enough to accurately say that we could know his plan, will or purpose. We observe the world and the happenings in it through the blinders of our own limited existence and experience. Like the horses pulling the buggy rides in Charleston, we take in the world, and try to understand it, with only those few things we see directly in front of us. Now the driver can see outside the narrow view experienced by the horse and understands to a far greater extent why they must stop or turn or speed up or slow down. The horse, who likely thinks the purpose of the entire journey is to make it back to the stall and get some oats, necessarily must trust and listen to the driver in order to safely navigate the narrow, busy Charleston streets.
I sometimes like to think of God's plan for me as working sort of like the Tom Tom on my phone. I want to get somewhere and ask Tom Tom to help me do so. Almost instantly, Tom Tom provides for me a 'plan' to get there, if I follow the plan it takes me where I need to, but often I'll forget to listen or have the music up too loud to hear or simply convince myself that I know a better shortcut which invariably leaves me into the frantic state of turning this way and that, no longer even trying to make it to my original destination, but rather now only trying to make it out of some of the worst ares in Charleston alive. But, Tom Tom never gives up on me. It never says "that's it! You had your chance to follow. Now you're on your own!". Almost as soon as I make a wrong turn, there on my phone, is a new plan. It never forgets my original destination or stops trying to help me get there.
God's plan for me woks a little like that too, except God, not being bound by space or time, doesn't need to wait for me to take a wrong turn before altering his plan for me. To him, it's already happened and the plan is already in place. I don't know Bo, it's part of the big math equation that we don't understand. But we don't have to, we just have to trust that the guy with the reins does and that in his wisdom he's guiding our walk in the right direction.
So there you have it; two similes for the price of one. I hope that was responsive. Good to talk to you.
