Coffee Stains: If You Goof Up, Get Up!
Author: David PorterI suspect that some people accomplish more by doing what they consider to be Plan B for their lives than they ever would have, if they had been able to live in Plan A.
My Plan A was to play second base for the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. The only thing that kept me from doing it was a lack of talent and the desire to work really hard. Other than that I had what it took to excel.
Plan A1 was to be a world-famous foreign correspondent for some magazine.
What I’m doing now wasn’t in my plans. But, I have no regrets. Each one of us is born for a reason. God conceived us to play a special role. We all have ideas and desires but the best of all is to do what we were created to do.
What happens when we goof up, though? I’ve heard unhappily married Christians say, “I married out of the will of God.” That puzzles me a bit. If they married out of the will of God, then so did their husband or wife. And whoever should have married those two also married out of God’s will because he or she should have married this unhappy couple. And those who married these others were also out of God’s will.
So, I guess the whole world married out of God’s will because of this one silly person. Sad isn’t it?
Truth is, we all mess up sometimes. Mess-ups are to be avoided because the clean-up isn’t pretty. But, if you mess up, don’t quit. Make the best of the situation where you are.
You know what? I suspect that some people accomplish more by doing what they consider to be Plan B for their lives than they ever would have, if they had been able to live in Plan A.
If you goof up—get up! Go on.
How do you get up? You repent, asking God’s forgiveness. You give yourself entirely to Him again, then you look for opportunities to serve Him. Maybe you’ll never get to do what you thought you wanted to do. So what? Do what you can do!
Plan B might have been God’s plan A all along.
“God, make a fresh start in me,
shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don’t throw me out with the trash,
or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile,
put a fresh wind in my sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways
so the lost can find their way home.
Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,
and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
Unbutton my lips, dear God;
I’ll let loose with your praise.”
(from Psalms 51, Message version)
Have you ever felt you missed God’s will? Did God help you to bring good out of the situation. Share it with other readers of Coffee Stains (david.porter@agmd.org)
Hmmm …
“The only thing worse than nostalgia is amnesia.” Ravi Zacharias
Smile
“When I was running today I heard someone clapping for me. But, it was just my thighs cheering me on.” (Internet)