Plans?

Davy the dog.

Sounds like a kids cartoon show or something!

Davy the dog is a local vagrant who hangs about Durham City Centre. He got the name “The dog” due to his constant referral to an imaginary dog he calls John.

His clothes are filthy, there is an active array of insect life in his matted hair, and his shoes are worn and tattered.

His only possessions are a PAYG mobile phone, a Lady Gaga CD, a broken groundsheet which he uses as a roof over his head, and an old seriously dirty mattress that his mate helped him pull up behind an old wall in an old graveyard where he mostly sleeps.

He drinks litres of frosty jack cider and cheap vodka when he can get it.

His conversation is deceivingly lucid, he sounds like he is making complete sense, yet he is really talking out some really crazy stuff.

But just occasionally he comes out with something really profound even though he doesn’t always mean too.

The other day, I was sitting in a doorway sharing a hot coffee with him when he came out with a quote from mike Tyson the boxer. He said you know what Gary? Mike Tyson says, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

He was referring to his life so far. He then shared a whole host of life-disasters that had occurred in his time so far on earth. He finished by repeating over and over again, “I had plans once you know, I had plans once you know.”

It had me reflecting big time!

Obviously Davy the dog had been punched in the face by his lot in life more than once, so much so he was down and almost out.

I began to think about my own life so far.

How I had been planning and scheming for many years in the earlier part of my life and getting punched in the face most of the time.

I was never in the position that Davy finds himself in, but I was almost down and almost out on more than one occasion.

I grew up in a Salvationist family, fifth generation actually, so the Salvation Army was a world all on its own that I developed in. I was taught attributes such as not buying on a Sunday, commitment to the band, do not let your hair grow down to your collar, shine your shoes, be there every Sunday, and the list could go on and on.

Right up until my early thirties, I lived out that kind of Salvationism. I could do Salvationism but inside my being? I was messed up, falling apart and going nowhere.

But the plan was to look like a Salvationist.

   

Jesus Christ of Nazareth rescued me.

In our bathroom at home there is a little ceramic plate in white with black writing on it, it says life is what happens when we are busy making plans.

And Davy the dog tells me everyone has a plan.

I had a plan, and was always making plans.

I feel like I missed life, life that was happening all around me.

After I encountered the reality of Jesus and began a serious relationship with him, my plans seemed to just disappear. I started to see his plan, especially as I began to see the need that was around me everywhere. I started to realise his plans are my plans. A well-documented verse set deep in the texts of the Bible says, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29: 11)

That’s the thing. Mike Tyson says, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” God says, “My plans won’t harm you but prosper you and my plans have a future in them.”

So when I say Jesus rescued me, I mean when I was going it alone I kept getting knocked down.

Doing the Salvationism thing was not enough.

There was no life in it. I don’t think there ever will be life in that alone.

Since encountering Jesus though, the Salvation Army has come alive for me, it suddenly has a purpose, a reason for its existence, and I have a purpose and a reason for my time on earth and the two match up perfectly because they are lovingly wrapped in the being of Jesus.

As I dodge the knits from Davy the dog’s matted head, I get the strong feeling that God is drawing the Salvation Army back to the Spiritual life. Where a beautiful relationship with God, a deeper experience of God will determine who we are and what we become not a set of human plans.

Because God knows the plans he has for us.

Maybe it’s time to stand up and resist being punched in the face.

What about your plans? What’s happening?

Is it time to step out of the flow of our own plans and into the stream of Gods plan?