When I first read John Steinbeck’s
Of Mice and Men, I discovered, “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
/ Gang aft a-gley.” I use that line from a Robert Burns’ poem to
explain why, no matter how carefully I have planned a project, something goes
wrong. When things go wrong despite my best intentions and efforts, I comfort
myself by reciting, ‘the best laid plans….’
Through my life I have been a
planner. I wrote a letter to my
mother-in-law while I was courting her daughter to explain how I planned to
live the next twenty-five years of my life so that I would become President. The
letter worked in gaining her approval of my plan for her daughter to become my
bride. As for the rest of the plan,
well, ‘the best laid plans….’
After a lifetime of planning,
two years ago I planned my retirement with a team of colleagues at our
church. We planned for me to retire from
full time ministry four days from now. This would have been my last Saturday
Stirrings. Then ‘the pandemic’
happened. You may have heard of it. ‘The
best laid plans….’
Plan B: wait a year. In June
2021, begin a search process for my successor, so that I would retire one year
hence. As the calendar turned to June,
that bride I mentioned above, my partner of 46 years, she and I came to the
same conclusion. I am not ready to
retire. There is more work to be done with the people of Hope Church, and anyway,
there is nothing she wants me to fix around the house since everything I touch
breaks on contact. ‘The best laid plans….’
The church leadership agrees.
Not that I break things, but that there is more work for me to do. The wonderful people of Hope agree, or at least
the majority do. For the first time in
my adult life my plan is to have no plan. Having no plan there is nothing to ‘gang
aft a-gley’. What happens next is God’s plan.
To God alone be the glory.
“Even when I am old and
gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation,
your mighty acts to all who are to come.” Psalm 71:18
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