Commencing Plan B

Several years ago, we attended Commencement exercises at a college, and the speaker of the day was a CNN anchor and reporter, Aaron Brown.  He joyously urged the graduates to “go out and conquer their world” by figuring out what you most want to do, and when you have discovered that, then make that your Plan A. He also cautioned the graduates, and really every one else in the hall, about settling, about getting so anxious, or fearful about Plan A that you develop a Plan B, “just in case things don’t work out with your dream.” Brown emphatically told the students that Plan B is what wrecks Plan A. If you leave yourself an out, you will try to take it.

Like a lot of the graduates and their parents and families there, I could feel the pull of what Brown said, and I walked away that afternoon thinking to myself, “Yes! I’ve got to remember and re-imagine my Plan A! I can still conquer the world. I gotta be me!" This is how it should be when we dream, envision and imagine what we will do.

I wish you all your Plan A. I pray for you that your Plan A is already, or will soon become, vivid and compelling. However, I have something further that I wish and pray for each of you. I wish and pray Plan B for you, as well. A few days went by after I heard Mr. Brown’s remarks, and I realized something: the richest, most challenging, most distressing yet life-illumining-lessons I ever learned have been Plan B lessons.

Plan A is always an idealized plan. Nothing goes wrong. Everyone behaves. We are always energetic and kind. The wind is always blowing at our backs. We never get lost or confused. But as a friend of mine, a Presbyterian pastor, used to say, “Our ideal plans don’t work because no one ever imagines the effects of sin or fatigue." Or random events. Or a change of heart or perspective. Or…Or…Or…

Let me give you an example. At a certain point in my life, I developed an idealized image of myself, a Plan A, that I should earn a Ph.D. and ultimately become a professor and author. This went on for years and years, and I kept mentally scolding God and all my friends and my family for not getting it that I was secretly meant to be a renowned professor.

Then one day a pivotal thing happened, even though it took me years to realize what it meant for my Plan A. A couple came to see me about their marriage. I listened. I asked questions. I prayed with them. I tried to guide them. And it happened that I was there for them at just the right moment. Those two people re-committed to preserving the vibrancy of their marriage, and it dawned on me that during all the time I thought I was just temporarily doing my Plan B as a pastor, what was really going on was just God getting me in the place where, if I never did anything else worthwhile in my life, at least I helped two wonderful people to re-discover their love for each other. I realized I could live and die content with that one little thing, knowing that one good thing happened because of where God put me. You don’t need a Ph.D. for that: “Plan B Works, Too!” God's plan was that I would pastor others, and it was a vast improvement on my own best plans.

Plan B lives are so much better than strict Plan A lives because they are not about the idealized Self who impresses everybody; they are about being real, being vulnerable, being humble, being resilient, being hurt and getting up again; seeing other people hurt and helping them to get up again. They are about following Jesus, who was after all, God’s Plan B (after the Law and Prophets). Even when your own plans to conquer the world are shaken, and you don’t know how you can go on, you can still love the sisters and brothers. “And this is the victory that conquers the world" -- faith, hope and love -- Jesus Christ -- God’s Plan B.