<\/p>\n
Proverbs 16:9\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 A man\u2019s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.<\/p>\n
James 4:13-17<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0Come now, you who say, \u201cToday or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit\u201d\u2014\u00a0yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.\u00a0Instead you ought to say, \u201cIf the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.\u201d\u00a0As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.\u00a0So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It is true that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But it is also true that straight lines rarely exist in real life. More often than not, the plans we make involve many twists and turns that we had not planned on encountering. One measure of our trust in God is seen in how we navigate the unexpected changes in our plans.
\nJonah had a plan\u2014rather than obey God and head east to Nineveh, his plan was to go west to Tarshish (modern Spain) in order to avoid meeting his enemies face-to-face. But God\u2019s original plan did not change. Instead, God changed Jonah\u2019s plan by casting him into the sea and having him swallowed by a great fish. When faced with the likelihood of dying as fish food, Jonah repented of his disobedience and decided to submit to God\u2019s original plan. Even then, Jonah\u2019s story does not end well. He was not happy with God\u2019s mercy toward Nineveh, and Scripture leaves him in a state of self-pity.
\nA valuable lesson from Jonah\u2019s life is that God\u2019s plans will not be foiled by human failure or intervention. If God changes your plans, seek His will and follow His lead. (Dr. Jeremiah)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Proverbs 16:9\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 A man\u2019s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. James 4:13-17\u00a0\u00a0Come now, you who say, \u201cToday or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit\u201d\u2014\u00a0yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. … Continue reading “74. Proverbs 16:9\u00a0“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200470"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200474,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200470\/revisions\/200474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}