Day 17

 

The Best Laid Plans

 

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."

 

 

Proverbs 19:21

 

I had it all planned out. It would be a date she would remember. I was probably right in my optimistic  prediction. She would remember it, but for the wrong reasons.

 

The central part of my plan centered on my recent discovery of how to get on the roof of a shopping mall. There was a swimming pool on the roof of the mall and a jogging track around the glass dome part of the roof. Access to this was reserved for hotel guests in the hotel connected to the mall or for enterprising people who had discovered a way up to the roof for free.

 

So, after the movie ended, my date and I made our way to the mall roof. At first my plan seemed to be working. We walked hand in hand around the glass dome of the mall peering down on the people inside. We were the only ones up there on the roof. We settled in to some chairs by a table with an umbrella on the wooden deck next to the pool. We were sitting there in the dark having a nice conversation when things began to go wrong.

 

I saw something scurrying around my dates feet. I seldom wore my glasses back then and I couldn't tell what it was so I put on my glasses to discover that there were mice everywhere. I told her not to be alarmed but it was probably time to leave because there were mice running around her feet. She, of course, was ready to leave then and informed me she had to be home by midnight anyway so her dad wouldn't get mad. The mice were a small setback but I though I had still made a good impression.

 

As we went to get off the roof we found that the door we had entered by was locked. Evidently the hotel staff didn't realize there was anyone on the roof and had locked the door. We weren't really supposed to be on the roof anyway so they were not looking for us. The girl began to get nervous. "My dad is going to freak if I don't come home tonight." In my mind I could see the headlines in the newspaper: "Father Shoots Boy who Imprisoned 17 Year Old Daughter on Mall Roof for Entire Night."

 

I searched for another exit of the roof. I pulled on every door I could find before I finally found one that would open. It opened into a hallway in which there was an elevator. We quickly got in the elevator and pushed the ground floor button. I didn't think it was a good idea for a couple of teenagers who weren't guests to be caught loitering around a hotel in the middle of the night. As the elevator went down it suddenly stopped and the doors opened. We were between floors and the door would not shut and the elevator would not move. We stood there for a while before the door finally shut and the elevator started moving again. As we reached the ground floor we hurried past a hotel employee and ran into the parking lot. She made it home before midnight.

 

Once again my plans had gone awry. It was not the first time and wouldn't be the last. I had a first date where I had to change a flat tire in a downtown parking garage. I had another first date where my car overheated in the traffic of a college football game. When I pulled into a gas station to put some water in the radiator I didn't wait long enough for the engine to cool down before removing the radiator cap. Fortunately for me I was young and quick or the radiator cap would have taken my head off and the hot water would have scalded my face when the cap exploded off and the water went up like a geyser. My plans for a date were always going wrong. Most of the girls I dated changed their identities and entered the witness protection program rather than be identified as a girl who had dated me.

 

Our plans often times fail but God's plans always succeed. God manages to accomplish what he wants to accomplish with or without our cooperation. It would be years before a girl survived enough dates with me that it would lead to marriage. I knew by then if I was ever to get married it would have to be God's plan.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Jeremiah 29:10-14

 

• What kind of plans did God have for the Israelites?
• What happens when we seek God with all our heart?
• Do God's plans sometimes take us through bad (captivity) times?