I have done quite a bit of pre-marital counseling over the past 40+ years. One of the sessions focuses on the future. I give an assignment in which I ask the prospective husband and wife to put in writing their plans for the future in increments of one year, five years and ten years. I ask them to specifically tell me their expectations in relation to subjects such as: education; children; career; housing; location; and others. As they come back for the follow-up session, with written plans in hand, we begin looking at their submissions one subject at a time.

Once we have laboriously gone through each entry, I then drop the bombshell: “What if?” What if life doesn’t go as planned? What if your educational goals have to be postponed? What if your career doesn’t take off as you had hoped? What if your desire to move to a new location doesn’t come through? What if your plans for starting a family are not realized?

I then speak with them at length about the fact that life doesn’t always go as planned, and I share the following passage with them. Please read this slowly, carefully, and especially prayerfully.

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell and make a profit’; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’ But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.”

James 4:13-16

There is an extremely important phrase in that passage that needs special attention. James says, “Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow.” It seems that he is warning, not against planning, but against presumptive planning. It seems that he is striving to get his readers to understand that even the best of plans can result in failure and prove disastrous. Planning for the future is an important part of life, but plans must always be made with the understanding that God may have other plans. So, as James says, we should pray as we make our plans, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”

This is true, not only of young couples contemplating marriage, but of everyone. We should always bear in mind that God’s plans and our plans may not always be in alignment. As we stand at an altar of marital commitment, we make our vows to be committed to one another until we are parted by death. We actually say to one another that we will be there through every eventuality of life. Even when our plans fall through and we are faced with the extreme hardships of life, we are to remain loyal and committed to one another.

Have your plans taken a detour lately? Have you had to change direction due to unforeseen circumstances? Then realize, first and foremost, that this may very well be a detour of God’s making. Perhaps His desire in causing the detour was because He saw something dangerous ahead if you stayed on your planned path, so He lovingly diverted you to keep you safe. Or, perhaps He simply had other plans for your life that did not include the path you had chosen.

Let me close by using the Apostle Paul as our example. In Acts 16 we find this account:

“Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.“

Acts 16:6-10 (emphasis added)

“They were forbidden.” “The Spirit did not permit them.” Detours. Paul had planned to go in one direction, but the Holy Spirit had other plans. So it is with us quite often. The key to living a contented life is to follow the Lord, even when we have to cancel our plans in order to do so. Take the advice of James, and follow the example of Paul, and live by the advice found in Proverbs:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding: In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.”

Proverbs 3:5-6