Does God have a Blueprint for my Life? Part 4

Passage

"For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.." Ephesians 2:10

Pondering

A better term than "Blueprint" for our understanding of God’s will is "Game plan". In a blueprint everything is decided, even down to the smallest details, and should not be changed, especially if the designer is perfect. However, a game plan is a stated plan of execution that has a series of "if..then" statements, allowing for some flexibility and also for mistakes that are inevitably made along the way. A blueprint has only plan A, but a game plan allows for a whole variety of plans (Plan A,B,C,D..) based on the actions of the opposing team and other factors.

Hence, in any decision, we are to seek God’s game plan. Think about choosing the right person to marry, going to the right university, getting the right job. A blueprint mentality would say that there is only one correct choice. A game plan view, however, would follow certain strategies and principles of the game. So in choosing a right partner to marry there are certain guidelines the Bible does give us such as seeking for a fellow Christian of similar maturity and vision (and there may well be more than one who meets these criteria).

This is not to say that God does not give specific direction when needed. Think of the guidance given to Paul and his team as they wanted to enter Bithynia (Acts 16:7-9) - the Holy Spirit forbade them to go east but instead gave a vision of the Macedonia man, showing they were to continue west into Europe. God’s game plan was missions, discipling the nations according to the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) and with a westward emphasis. Paul was busy doing this, using the strategy he understood from Scripture with the wisdom he had gained by the Holy Spirit. As he was about to step a bit out of the game plan the Lord intervened with specific direction. However, Paul was not hunting for this direction but busy doing what he considered to be the will of God.

So, Ephesians 2:10 could be best expressed as "For we are God’s spiritual soccer team, hand picked by the manager’s son, Jesus, and coached by the Holy Spirit to follow a good game plan that’s already been prepared and presented to us by the coach from Scripture." Indeed the manager’s son is the world’s best and He is our elder brother, His name is Jesus. We are sons and daughters of the manager and destined for a glorious and famous win against the best team the world can throw at us!

Poem

I'm part of God's spiritual soccer team,
The goal is "The Lost to redeem",
The game plan is reaching every tribe and tongue
Ministering with my God-given gifts to old and young.

Prayer

"Father, mature me in understanding and moving in Your gameplan for every area of my life. Let Your Word dwell in me richly so I can constantly make choices wisely and glorify Your name. Amen."