Are You Pondering What I’m Pondering?

When I was growing up there was a cartoon called, “Pinky and the Brain”. Pinky and the Brain were two lab mice who had been genetically altered to change their intelligence level. Unfortunately it seemed that Pinky’s alteration failed and left him as unintelligent and random as ever, and Brain’s alteration caused him to fixate on taking over the world using his newfound knowledge. Night after night, Pinky and the Brain would escape from their cage and attempt to take over the world using some new radical plan devised by Brain himself. Brain would look to Pinky as they were beginning their escape and ask, “Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?” And Pinky would say something obviously wrong like, “I think so Brain, but if they called them ‘sad meals’ the kids wouldn’t buy them.” Even though Brain’s plan seemed air tight every night, Pinky always found a way to disturb the balance and cause everything to come crashing down around them, forcing them to go back to the drawing board until the next night, when they would again try to take over the world.

^“21 Many plans are in a man’s heart, But the counsel of the Lord will stand.” – Proverbs 19:21

People think of a lot of things. We think about how we might do this or do that, how we might get rich or how we might make a better life for our families, how we might take revenge on a sworn enemy or how we might make up for a wrong done to a loved one, but in all the plans we make in our lives, we must remember one thing: Only the counsel of the Lord will stand. Our “Brains” can think of a lot of plans, but if those plans are not made according to God’s will and God’s counsel, they will inevitably fall. Remember the words of our brother James that he wrote years ago in James 4:13-15:

“¹³Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ ¹⁴ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. ¹⁵ Instead say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.’”

In all our plans, let us remember to consider first God’s will for our lives, and then if it is pleasing to Him we will do the things we plan. Let us remember that we are servants of God first, and that our desires are not as important as God’s will.

If you are in the Sacramento area and are looking for a congregation who tries to do things in a way that always puts God’s will first, come visit the Mariposa Avenue Church of Christ. Hope to see you soon!