Choosing Joy When Plans Go South

From the get-go our Canada adventure seemed destined for surprises necessitating adjustments. It started with a 4:30 AM Delta text about a prolonged delay. I scrambled to book an alternate flight. Jan developed a sore throat soon after our arrival in Idaho. The morning we expected to drive to Kelowna, BC for my weekend speaking engagement, I succumbed to chest congestion and coughing. Off we went to an urgent care. By the end of the day, I was hospitalized with a case of aspiration pneumonia. So much for teaching peacemaking at the church camp.

I must confess my struggle with disappointment. A lot of work went into preparing the four messages I hoped to bring that weekend. I love teaching the Bible, especially when the subject focuses on my passion to promote the blessedness of peacemaking (Matthew 5:9). I looked forward to helping my host and his people with conflict coaching for their respective challenges. And Jan and I both regretted missing out on surveying the glory of God on display in the Canadian wilderness.

Providence, as it has done so often before, threw me a curve ball of changed circumstances (Ecclesiastes 7:13-14). I had a choice to make. FOMO or JOMO? The former acronym, the fear of missing out, I knew all too well. But the latter, the joy of missing out, hit my radar screen for the first time on this trip. Apparently, JOMO is a thing. Who knew? The Lord used it to keep me from wallowing in disappointment in favor of rejoicing (Philippians 4:4) and giving thanks (1 Thessalonians 5:18). He showed me at least three upsides to the change in plans.

Checked Pride

When I wrote about the prospect of this Canada engagement in my last post, I put things this way: “The next of those ministry opportunities takes place, Lord willing, this weekend.” I’ve learned over time to qualify all future plans accordingly from texts like James 4:13-17:

¹³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— ¹⁴ yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷ So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

To add “Lord willing” to one’s future plans is no trivial qualifier. It reveals humility that acknowledges God’s sovereignty over every circumstance. We simply do not know what tomorrow may bring. To presume certainty in planning amounts to sinful boasting which belies the fragility and brevity of life.

Increased Contentment

The longer I live and walk with the Lord I am more convinced than ever of one thing. God cares more about what he is doing in me than what he is doing through me. That pertains particularly through cultivating what Paul calls the secret of contentment in Philippians 4:10-13:

¹⁰ I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. ¹¹ Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content. ¹² I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. ¹³ I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

I almost labeled this section “Learned Contentment.” Paul seemed to have arrived at a level of maturity wherein he actually experienced both joy in abundance and need. His JOMO secret of contentment lay in his trust in the Lord’s strength to sustain him in every providence, hard or easy. I’m not there yet, but I rejoice to be learning more along the way of life’s highs and lows.

Sharpened Focus

Not more than two days after returning from our trip, this passage jumped off the page in my daily Bible reading in 1 Corinthians 16:5-9:

⁵ I will visit you after passing through Macedonia, for I intend to pass through Macedonia, ⁶ and perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter, so that you may help me on my journey, wherever I go. ⁷ For I do not want to see you now just in passing. I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits. ⁸ But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, ⁹ for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

Paul clearly looked forward to the prospect of an extended visit with the church at Corinth. But he knew better than to presume upon the Father’s will for the future–hence “if the Lord permits.” Besides, he had no doubt about God’s will for the present–a wide door for effective work in Ephesus! JOMO happens when we ask the Father, What doors will you open for my service now that these others have closed? Perhaps in another post I will write about my interaction with my hospital roommate who it just so happens was suffering from head and neck cancer just like I have!

God is always working through every kind of providence that we may even embrace JOMO. Choose joy for the plans he has to transform us more and more into the likeness of our older brother, King Jesus (Romans 8:29).