When you hear the word “unplanned,” do you have a generally positive reaction or generally negative? That’s the kind of question that might be asked on a personality test. Some people like to organize everything and plan out the steps for their day or even their life. Other people hear that word and think freedom, spontaneity, and excitement. Regardless of how you feel about the word, most of us do in fact have some kind of plan for how we think our lives should go.
Often times, our greatest frustrations in life come when some unforeseen event comes into conflict with our plan for how we think things should go. Yet, it is often in these times when our plan seems to have been wrecked that God is able to show us a new plan. God’s plan is almost always better than the original plan, but we never would have gone that way had our original plan not failed. Like a good GPS, if we get off the planned route, God will “recalculate” a new route that may be even better than the first.
This weekend, a movie named “Unplanned” opens in theaters across the country. It is the real life story of Abby Johnson, who rose to the high level position of being a Clinic Director for Planned Parenthood. She had her plan. She thought she was helping women and dedicated her life to Planned Parenthood. Everything changed when she actually saw an abortion taking place. She realized this was not something she could be a part of anymore, and so she left. Talk about unplanned!
Although Abby’s life took an unplanned turn, God always had a plan. Today, Abby is a leading pro-life advocate. Her story offers hope and healing to all those who have been wounded by the abortion industry. In this way, her story is a lot like that of the prodigal son in our gospel.
Like Abby, the son had his plans, to leave his father and see the world. Then it all came crashing down. He finally realized how far away he was and made the courageous decision to head home. His new plan was to be his father’s servant. But then something very unplanned happened. Rather than condemning him, his father had compassion on him and held a banquet in his honor. The son couldn’t even imagine such a plan.
Sometimes the greatest moments of grace can come when our plans all fall apart. When we realize that God has the ultimate plan for our happiness, then the greatest moments in life might just be those that, to us, seem unplanned.