God is in it, but really its a bad plan II

My last post raises the questions of plans, and whose plans they really are. We saw that the desire to have a King of Israel was not really God's plan - at least in the way the Israelites at the time envisaged.

Yet the whole outworking of the prophetic insight for Saul to be anointed by Samuel would be enough to convince any of us that God was with indeed with us: after all, when things flow so well, events line up, and God-incidences happen, we naturally conclude that God is in it, working with us and for our benefit, and all is well. In fact we often see such 'lining up' of events as the test or proof that our intentions are indeed 'of God'.

So could it be that at least on some occasions God will enable things to line up and 'flow well' (allowing our plans to be realised) when in truth they are not actually the best thing for us? God goes with us, enables it, lines it up, somehow accommodating events to our 2nd rate aspirations.

This is the God of grace - enabling things to work out even when we are on the wrong track. 'Making it work', when on paper it should be unworkable and thus consigned to the scrap heap.

Yet it also means we should perhaps be a bit more humble the next time we see things flow and say 'see - I told you God is in it!'. God in His grace may have stooped down to our way of thinking, but there could have been a better way ...

Who knows? Well the bottom line is whether our intents are good or wonky, God is a God of grace who somehow accommodates us even in our inferior thinking.