As It Turned Out
“The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.” Psalm 33:10- 11
One of the central purposes of scripture is to assure us that God has a plan to redeem fallen man. He endowed us with free will, knowing we’d rebel against Him and go our own way. But God didn’t want a planet full of robots with no choice but to obey Him. He wanted people to freely choose Him or to freely reject Him. And before the beginning of time, He had a plan to redeem us when we fell.
If God’s plan can be thwarted, God loses and Satan wins; good loses and evil wins. But the Bible shows us time and again that “the plans of the Lord stand firm forever.” One example is the story of Ruth. Ruth was a foreigner living in Israel with her mother-in-law. They were just two widows trying to subsist in a land of little opportunity.
They were so poor they didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. So, Ruth volunteered to go glean in the fields, which was both dangerous and difficult. Ruth 2:3 tells us, “She went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz.”
“As it turned out” is the key phrase here. It doesn’t mean she got a lucky break, or that it was by chance. It was by God’s sovereign will. As it turned out God brought Ruth and Boaz together. As it turned out Boaz was a special relative of Ruth’s father-in-law. They eventually married and became the great grandparents of King David and an important link in the genealogy of Jesus, the savior of the world. God’s plan remained intact.
If you’re walking by faith nothing is by chance. Trust God and see how it turns out.
Are you trusting God and believing that the purposes of his heart will be accomplished through all generations?
Having begun as a guest speaker in 2005, Dan was appointed Interim Pastor in 2008 and has been serving Maple Root Baptist ever since. As a small group leader and Chaplin for the Connecticut Tigers, Dan has a heart for the lost and the God that saves them.