To Encourage You

2 Corinthians 1:17 “Do I make my plans according to the flesh . . .?

How important is planning to you?  Some people are plan driven. From the time they wake up in the morning they have a list.  They know where they want to go and how they want to get there.  They have both short-term and long-term plans. They’ve heard the saying, “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail” and they want to make certain such failure doesn’t happen to them. 

Certainly, planning is a wise and necessary thing, be it regarding our finances, education, travel, career, retirement . . . the list goes on and on.  In the verse above, the apostle Paul talks about his own plans. They were plans related to his ministry to the church at Corinth.  He had made plans to visit them, but those plans had been disrupted, and apparently, they were disgruntled because of it.  It is on this occasion that Paul asks the question “Do I make my plans according to the flesh?”  It’s a rhetorical question, with an answer that should be obvious: “No!”  What he means by this is that he didn’t make any of his plans based on the flesh, i.e., human reasoning, alone. No, in everything he did he was led by the Holy Spirit.  In his first letter to the Corinthian church he put it this way: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).  In other words, Paul was telling them (and us) that a believer should be led of the Spirit in all that he or she does.

Our life is not our own; it is Christ’s.  It is He, and not us, that is the Lord.  Therefore, what should matter to us above all else is “What are Christ’s plans for me?”  We should continually be attuned to what He wants.  This requires prayer, study of God’s Word, and attentiveness to the ways God may be leading us.  We are given this same message in Proverbs 3:5-6 where we are told to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”  And then there are these words, again to the church at Corinth: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).  Of course, “whatever you do” includes any plans we make in life. We are to be flexible.  We are to acknowledge that “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).  As a result, our plans are never to be self-centered. They aren’t to be so set that a disruption in those plans by the God Who is sovereign over all throws us for a loop.  We are to constantly seek what God would have for us, and be ready and willing to be led by Him into situations, tasks, and opportunities that He desires for us.  That’s the attitude expressed in the Lord’s prayer with these words: “Thy will be done, on earth as in heaven,” which carries with it the idea “Thy will for my life.” 

For an example of this, consider the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10. Here Jesus talks about a man who fell among robbers, was stripped, beaten, and left half dead. Surely those things weren’t in his plans that day.  But then we are told that “by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’” 

Obviously all three men who “just happened” upon this scene had plans for that day.  Perhaps the “religious” priest and Levite had plans to do some sort of spiritual service in the temple. Maybe they had people to meet. They were obviously going somewhere to do something they had planned. But when a situation that was not in their plans, yet was an obvious opportunity to “love your neighbor as yourself,” arose, they refused to change their plans to honor the God they claimed was their Lord.  It was the Samaritan, on the other hand, who did what he could, going above and beyond with his time, possessions, and money, to serve the Lord in truth. 

May God help us to not make our plans “according to the flesh” which is the way of the world, for we have been called to serve the Lord according to His plans for us, no matter the impact of those plans on our own.