My Place in God’s Plan

If you have travelled back to London Gatwick airport from abroad, arriving back in the South Terminal, you will almost certainly have seen the twin mosaics of Queen Elizabeth. One is of the Queen at her coronation, and the other at her Diamond Jubilee. They are entitled ‘The People’s Monarch’, and were commissioned by BBC South East. They are a massive 38m square. However, they are quite unique in that they are created from around 5,000 photos submitted by many people depicting different points in their lives. There are laughing babies, young children, families at the beach, and a variety of beloved pets. They are all put together in an amazing way so that the full effect is only visible from a distance. The closer you get to the mosaics the harder it is to spot the picture of the Queen. As you draw closer still, you can only see the individual photos and are surprised that they seem to have no possible link to the picture created.

Travelling back from a family holiday abroad just recently, I found myself sensing God was trying to get me to understand something in what I was seeing. I began to realise the picture of the Queen represents God’s ultimate plan for the world. He is constantly working towards making that plan come to fruition.  We all have a place in it. Every single one of us, who knows and loves Him as Lord and Saviour, fits into that plan.

However, we need to know two things about that plan (probably many more, but this is what God has emphasised to me). Firstly, we need to know that, despite God’s plan, things won’t always go well for me. Part of God’s plan is to bless us and give us hope and a future, but we live in a fallen world, and God allows mankind free will. He cannot constantly intervene in every aspect of our lives, or that free will would be removed. Yet God will use it all, good, bad, and everything in-between, for good.

In the Old Testament we find that Job suffered and had loads of questions for God. In the end God didn’t answer them, but helped Job to realise that knowing the answer to things doesn’t always help. This book is highly valued by the persecuted Church worldwide.

We also have Paul in the New Testament doing an incredible job founding new churches across the known world and encouraging believers. However, in the midst of all the fantastic things he was doing, God allows him to be imprisoned for almost six years!  What was the point of that? Well, during that time, Paul wrote letters to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. They are all highly valued books of the Bible that we might not otherwise have had, and would have been poorer for it. So, let’s not discard the difficult things happening in our lives as valueless, because they are actually developing our part in God’s plan.

Secondly, you may regard your ‘photo’ in this mosaic of God’s perfect plan as being of little or no value. The devil loves to belittle us, and enjoys it even more if he can make us do this for him. You and I are not ‘nothing’, far from it. Although, from a distance, your part in it may seem invisible, from close up it is vital. The plan wouldn’t be complete without you. Take heart! You are very much a part of His plan.