You can prepare your horses for battle, but only the Lord can give you the victory.

How do we balance planning for the future and trusting God?

Perhaps you’ve experienced something like this: You see a great opportunity and you start thinking about how to take advantage of it. The more you think, the more excited you get. Your ideas start to become plans, and the more you plan, the more you can visualize the outcome.

And then suddenly—seemingly out of nowhere—all those wonderful plans fall apart. It can be crushing.

Perhaps in time you see God’s hand in all of it. You see that what He had in mind was so much better than the wonderful thing you were planning. Gaining that perspective, however, can take time—sometimes years.

We are not alone in these experiences. The Scriptures are filled with stories of God changing the plans of even His most ardent followers. Think about Paul. He pursued zealously the purity of the Jewish faith—right up to that moment on the Damascus Road when God not only changed Paul’s plans, but his whole understanding of the faith. Then he started preaching to the Jews about Jesus—right up to that moment when God changed his plans again, sending him and Barnabas to the Gentiles. Paul planned out his missionary journeys carefully, and God frequently changed those plans: storms blowing him far off course, shipwrecks landing him in the midst of new people to hear the Gospel, arrests and beatings. I love the story in Acts 16:6-10, where God actively foils Paul’s plans to visit Asia, and then uses a vision to send him to Macedonia instead.

So why make plans at all if God can change them at any moment? Our verse today holds the answer. God calls us as His stewards to make plans—while knowing that God is still the one in ultimate control. He equips us with wisdom, experience, knowledge, creativity and other gifts needed to steward the life He provides us, but He still designs the bigger picture and holds ultimate control.

A cavalry officer would never enter battle without first preparing his horse and equipment. But the outcome of the battle remains in God’s hands. The same is true for each of us. We use everything God has given us to make our plans, but we also remain open to His intervention. As He said through the prophet Jeremiah: “I know the plans I have for you… I have good plans for you. I don’t plan to hurt you. I plan to give you hope and a good future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

By Rob Bullock, Bible League International staff, Indiana U.S.