BEST-LAID PLANS

Ever since our family moved to southeast Texas, we’ve been experiencing frequent hurricanes, floods, sweltering heat in the summer, and freezing temperatures in the winter. Due to these circumstances, it’s a little difficult to schedule future events. As they say in this area, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait an hour.”

Life is full of setbacks and reversals, having to cancel travel plans, family reunions, weekend barbecues, picnics, and the list goes on. Sometimes it can be frustrating, but really, all we can do is grin and bear it.

When it’s come to this, I often hear myself jokingly quoting the saying, “The best-laid plans of mice and men go oft awry.” I had never given these words much thought, but they seemed to fit whenever our plans didn’t go the way we thought they would or the way we wanted them to.

After doing a little research, I found that the Scottish lyricist Robert Burns penned the poem “To a Mouse” in 1785. It refers to an incident that happened to the poet as he was ploughing in the field and accidentally overturned the carefully built nest of a mouse. In the original Scottish dialect, it goes thus: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.”

One of the things I’m learning more every day is the need to be flexible. How wonderful that in these unsure times, I can have something solid to stand on and an anchor that will not be swept away. As the beautiful Bible verse expresses it, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”1

If you haven’t yet found Jesus and all that He has to offer, you can do so right now by praying the following prayer:

Jesus, I want to know You personally, so I invite You to come into my heart. Thank You for dying for me, so I can be forgiven for my sins, find peace of heart and mind here and now, and receive God’s gift of eternal life. Amen. MY ANCHOR HOLDS By William C. Martin

Though the angry surges roll

On my tempest-driven soul,

I am peaceful, for I know,

Wildly though the winds may blow, I’ve an anchor safe and sure,

That shall evermore endure.

And it holds, My anchor holds: Blow your wildest, then, O gale, On my bark so small and frail, By His grace I shall not fail,

For my anchor holds, my anchor holds.

Ruth Davidson was a missionary to the Middle East, India, and South America for 25 years. She is now an author and contributor to the website www.thebibleforyou.com. ■

Troubles almost ‘whelm the soul; Griefs like billows o’er me roll; Tempters seek to lure astray; Storms obscure the light of day; But in Christ I can be bold,

I’ve an anchor that shall hold.

1. Psalm 46:1