Does having a Plan B mean I have no faith?

lionunlimited

February 2

A precious asked this question on his Facebook page. I started to respond but realised that because I was already researching something that includes his question, my response could have been too long. I thought I would hold back and include the answer in my work. But that work has been slow going, and I keep getting pressed in my heart that someone out there may not have the luxury of time to wait for my more elaborate response to come. So, I decided to bring this now even though I will include it in the bigger work later.

Here we go.

Does having a Plan B mean I have no faith?

I believe this is a question from a heart on the verge of a major life shift and a sound answer will help them understand the path to a life of faith powered victories.

The answer to this question will not be palatable to most of us, because we will like to believe that we have been people of great faith.

The Bible says faith comes by hearing what God has to say by his word. There is no other way that faith can be obtained outside hearing what God has to say.

Faith comes only by hearing what God has said about your situation. If your Plan A is doing what you know God told you to do, you will not need a plan B because God himself has no plan B.

If, however, your plan A was a product of your own considerations (which we like to call wisdom), then it will be backed by whatever insight or skill and resources you have available to you. So, even if you don't have a plan B, it would not be a sign of faith because you were not working based on God's word to you in the first place. As such if you do come up with a plan B, both your plans A and B will not be backed up by faith.

For example, in the Bible, Peter walked on water towards Jesus not because he had skill with the water being a fisherman, but because Jesus said to do so.

Recently, I saw the making of a scene with 'The Chosen' team where Peter walked on water. I know they employed some form of technology to create that scene to make both Peter and Jesus 'walk on water.' Would the team be considered to have walked on water for that scene by faith simply because they did not have backup plans for how to make that scene work? Would having multiple backup plans then indicate a lack of faith for that scene? In both cases, the answer is no.

Drawing up a plan and praying or expecting that God will back it up is not the same as working with a plan drawn up by God. The former might be presumptuous or even foolish, and the latter is faith.

Heb 11:13 - 16 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of [them], and embraced [them], and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that [country] from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better [country], that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

Having a plan B does not mean that I have no faith, but it means I do not have the faith that I need for the Plan A. It is an indication that my plan A was is not a faith plan.

On a more practical note, it is more common for us Christians to not engage our faith when initially confronted with challenges in our lives. Quite often, faith comes on board only out of desperation after we have tried and exhausted all other human resources and options. I don't think God minds us trying to sort things out within our capacity, though, which is where our plans A, B, C, etc, come in.

It takes us back to the question in a different way, is it wrong for a child of God to have plans A, B, or C? No. Within the limits of human wisdom and insight, we should do what we can, but we have to learn to differentiate walking in our own wisdom from walking by faith, which implies God's direct involvement, and recognise where our capacity ends so that we can step up to a divine plan as needed.

For example, in the days of Samuel, the Israelites demanded to have a king who would lead them just like the nations around them had. God didn't like it, not because having a king was wrong, but because they had lost sight of Him as their leader. It was the same as when they raised the golden calf at the foot of Mt Sinai, "as for this Moses, we don't know what has happened to him, let us make gods for ourselves." So, God understood that they were making a choice and He respected it, but he pointed out to them that he was not involved in the choice they were making.

As I was saying, what we need to do is to learn to stop putting God's name on plans that did not originate from him, because doing so makes us think that we are walking under his directions aka walking by faith. The implication then is that if that plan fails, we think God failed us.

Then, learning from experience and not wanting to make God look bad, we make backup plans upon backup plans, instead of endeavouring to speak with God and get his own plan for our lives. And when one of our many plans works out, we share it as a testimony to give glory to God for something he had nothing to do with, which further trains us to put God further and further down the list of options.

More often than not, it is when we have run out of options that we reach out sincerely to God, obtain a word from him, base our actions on that word (which is what faith is), and get a testimony that actually glorifies God unequivocally. So, sometimes, it is that last option that involves and demonstrates our faith rather than the plan A.

It is the general recommendation to live by faith always, and I think that every genuine and well-trained child of God aims and prefers to live that way. However, striving to run our lives by faith just so we can look the part of faith people is just showmanship to which God's power is not bound. It is one of the reasons children of God get in trouble and wonder why faith did not work for us, or why God did not answer our prayers. I believe it is often why things still go the undesired way in spite of our best spiritual efforts and intentions.

Daniel Oyanna is a conference speaker on relationships, health, faith and other subjects and a Pastor and teacher blessed by God with a grace to make things easy to understand. He is the author of the book To Date or Not to Date, Instructions in Submission, Crushing the Crushers, several mini-books most of which are free. He started UnLimited to help people reach their God-given goals by walking with them to their finish line. He is reachable at pd_lionunlimited@yahoo.com