The Plan

Colossians 4:5-6
Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone. (NLT)

Most of us have heard the old adage If you fail to plan you plan to fail. So we set out on our life journey with a plan. We set goals for our lives and work our plan. Schooling leads to job opportunities and they set us out on our carrier path with the ultimate goal of a comfortable retirement package.

It all sounds good, but most never make it. The schooling that looked so right did not get us into that perfect job. We either did not end up liking what we trained for or there just were not jobs available in that field. Or the jobs were available, but the carrier path never unfolded. The result was that we did not end up meeting those goals set early on.

Then we met Jesus. These earthly plans we had depended on all of a sudden were meaningless. We now understood that He held the ultimate plan and He would help us meet the true goals of life, if we would allow Him to do so.

In our Bible we read the Great Commission and found ourselves eager to do what He told us. We were so eager we told everyone we met about our encounter with Jesus and how they had to meet Him, too. We set our goals and made our plan, once again. We decided how we could best do the job for God and became a salesman for Jesus.

But He tells us to live wisely among those who are not believers, and to make the most of every opportunity. We realized that it is His plan and not ours that will complete the journey. If we wait on the Lord, He will show us when it is time to tell our story. He makes the opportunities and it is up to us to listen for them and then act in faith on them.

And when we do step out and speak we are to let our conversation be gracious and attractive so that we will have the right response.