An Illustration of the Concurrence of Our Plans and God's Plans

This morning I considered an illustration of the way our wills and choices coincide with God's will and eternal decrees.

I work in the design field where I am drawing on a daily basis. We often find ourselves tracing over the lines of an existing drawing using tracing paper (a translucent paper). With that in mind, imagine that the lines of the existing drawing are the lines of God's decree; the lines of God's eternal plan. Now imagine that the tracing paper represents the Word of God, so we are suppose to interpret God's plan through the tracing paper (the Word of God). As we trace the lines on the existing drawing, because we are imperfect and affected by the curse, we don't see through the tracing paper as we ought, so we sometimes misinterpret the lines on the existing drawing underneath, thus we often do not trace over the lines properly. The less understanding we have of the scriptures, the thicker the tracing paper seems to be and in that case it is more difficult for us to see the lines of the existing drawing through the tracing paper.

So it also is with the concurrence of our plans and God's plans. Often, we lay out our plans on the tracing paper without tracing over the lines of God's plans because we do not see them clearly, but God's plans exist objectively and they do not change. Other times we do see the line of God's plans clearly through the tracing paper of scripture and we line the drawing of our own plans up with the lines of God's plan; God's glory is magnified and our joy results. Still other times we do see the lines of God's plan clearly and yet we rebel against those clearly draw lines and we scribble off in another direction, noticing that our scribbling has not changed the lines on the existing drawing underneath but instead, we find that our scribbling has driven us to joyless despair and fear, and as God's children we eventually and enevitably repent of our sinful misdirection, and by God's grace, once again we trace the existing lines of the plan God has drawn.