Most of those who know me know that I am a planner.  I always have (at least one) Things to Do list going.  If I am planning an event, I may have multiple lists.  If we are planning a trip to see our kids across the state, I will set out a box a month, or even two, ahead of time so that as I think of things that need to go over to them, I can put those items in the box, knowing that they won’t then be forgotten.

Anyone who knows my mom knows where I got this trait from.  Mama is an organizer par excellence.  When we moved from Texas when I was 12, she packed every box herself, assigning each a letter and number, and keeping meticulous track of the contents of each.  When we unloaded in Utah, each letter designation went to its assigned room, and by box number she knew exactly which boxes she needed to unpack in what order.  (The designation I remember most was “NNI” – “not needed immediately”.  You know, for those things you keep in the attic or storage closet.  I’m not sure how many years it may have been before the last one of those got opened!)

Actually, though, we both got that trait from Someone Else.  God’s a planner.  I started reading again through the book of Joshua recently, going a paragraph a day, looking for something to really cogitate on.  Early on, I hit the story about Rahab hiding the two Israelite spies, something jumped out at me. 

Remember that the story had begun well over 40 years before.  Recall the history of that journey:  The ten plagues to convince Pharaoh to let them go, ending with the death of the firstborn sons.  (That included adults as well as children, remember.  How many of Pharaoh’s fighting men may have fallen in that harvest?)  The parting of the Red Sea.  The drowning of the Egyptian Army.  The pillars of fire and cloud.  The bitter waters turned sweet.  Water from the rock.  Manna from heaven!  Miracle after miracle after miracle.  God affirmed to them again and again that He was giving them the land He had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  But when God told the people to go in to take the Promised Land, they didn’t trust Him.  They said, “Unh-uh.  No way, Jose.  No can do.”

God wasn’t just pretending that He wanted them to go in and take the land.  He meant it.  But He didn’t abandon them because they disobeyed Him.  Instead, He sent them on a 40 year detour until all those who had refused to trust Him had died, and the next generation would be ready to take up the challenge.  That detour wasn’t God’s original intent, but what did those 40 years accomplish?  God wasn’t just using them to mark time waiting for the older generation to die.  He used the time to keep proving Himself faithful to that next generation, raising up a generation who would trust and obey His leading.  Very importantly, though, He wasn’t just working in the Israelites.  He also used that time to prepare the Israelites’ enemies in the Promised Land.  During those 40 years of wandering, God was with the Israelites and gave them victory over other enemies outside of the Promised Land.  They wiped out several kings of surrounding territories – not just beat them, but utterly destroyed them.

When Rahab hid the spies who came to Jericho, she told them her people had heard how the Lord had dried up the Red Sea and brought the Israelites up out of Egypt (which was over 40 years earlier, when she would have been but a small child, if even born yet.)  She said they had heard what the Israelites had done to the neighboring kings.  The people’s hearts had already melted away in fear because they knew the Lord had already given the land into the hands of the Israelites.  (Although the Israelites weren’t looking for a word from an innkeeper of Jericho as a “fleece” from the Lord about whether or not to try to take the city, hearing her words about the quaking-in-their-boots status of the Jericho people had to have nevertheless been a very heartening extra affirmation to them that the outcome was already assured!)

One of the great “both/ands” of Scripture is God’s sovereignty and man’s choice.  God is sovereign, yet He is no mere puppeteer, no programmer of automatons.  Man chooses his actions, yet still cannot surprise God and upset his plans, forcing Him to formulate some “Eternal Plan B”.  The Israelites SHOULD have gone up to take the land the first time He told them to.  Yet even in their disobedience, He was preparing to use the consequences of their disobedience to bring about the victory for their children.  Had the Israelites gone up when they first should have, they would have faced an entirely different cast of characters.  The Israelites would have won, because God has promised so – but we’ll never know just precisely how it would have played out.  (Or maybe God will show us the alternative ending in heaven?)   Since the Israelites were disobedient, though, God raised up Rahab.  He had her in just the right place at just the right time with just the right courage.  

I can just see God ticking off items on His “To Do” list to set this whole scenario up – going back years and years and years before the events we read about.  The same is true of our lives.  The events we are going through now, the people we are encountering – things have been set in motion, wheels in wheels, for years and years, to bring things together at just this time, just this place.

I was acutely conscious of this over the last couple of days.  You see, on Thursday I took my mother to see our family doctor, who sent her for a chest x-ray, then straight to the hospital.  They removed 1.3 liters of fluid from her right lung.  Further CT scans and study of the fluid drawn off have given a definitive diagnosis that my 84 year old mother has cancer.  She will not seek treatment other than palliative care.  The estimate is that she will not be with us past this summer.

All those technologies that were in play didn’t get created yesterday.  They have been years and years in the making.  All those people attending to Mama didn’t suddenly appear at the hospital yesterday.  They’ve been training for years, practicing their profession for years.  One of the nurses has been a nurse for 40 years.  The oncologist is far from the start of his career.  Wheels intersecting with wheels, all in motion for years and years to bring people and events together at just this time, just this place.

One of my earliest memories is a ride at Disneyland where you are going on a track through a cavernous building with no lights, and random figures suddenly light up and appear as you approach or pass.  It is a vague memory, but it is terrifying.  The randomness of the appearance of the figures gives such a helpless feeling of being at their mercy.  It is just what I imagine it must be like to face a situation such as my mother and the rest of our family now face, if you believe that all things are simply random cosmic events, the product of a capricious, mindless, pointless universe. 

I am so thankful that the universe is not that Disneyland ride!  No, and again, NO.  Satan is actively working for evil, and seeks all that is destructive, rejoicing in all pain and suffering – but God is greater, and no matter what Satan may machinate, always and ever God is the Master, and it is HIS plans that prevail to bring about HIS purposes.   We do not need to – and should not expect to – understand what God’s specific purposes are.  We already know His ultimate purpose:  the good of those who love Him, which is to be conformed to the image of His Son.  No matter how random events may seem, they are not, in fact, random.  No matter how purposeless or pointless things may seem, they are, in fact, neither. 

God has been planning for these moments Mama’s whole life.  We have no idea how many boxes have already been checked off, but I am confident of this:  not one item on God’s “To Do” list for her life will be left undone.  On earth as it is in Heaven.  Amen!