book review: "plan b" by pete wilson

“What do you do when God doesn’t show up for you in the way you thought God was going to show up?”

What do we do when we feel like God’s not kept His promises? We thought we knew what God was telling us to do, the path He was leading us to take but we’ve hit a dead end. “When life isn’t turning out the way we had hoped, we almost always default to feeling as if God has abandoned us.” Looking at David’s life, Samuel told him he’d be king one day but things didn’t seem to be looking that way. “You’ve had doubts like David, right? You developed certain plans and expectations over your lifetime and as time went by you started to wonder if any of them would become a reality. Maybe you started to get discouraged. Maybe you started to lose hope. Maybe you’re feeling stuck and a little bored.” Can we not relate to David?

Pete Wilson also looks at the stories of Lazarus, Mary, Joseph and Abraham – all examples of waiting on God. He talks about how sometimes we worry about the unknown, which is a faith issue. Will we trust God even when we don’t know the outcome? “Putting it all, including our fear of the unknown, in the hands of the One who knows everything. And then moving forward because we can trust Him. Even in the dark.” Yet even when we feel like everything is falling apart, God is still with us. “He knows what you’re going through. He is right beside you, sharing your pain, even though He may not take it away. And He knows what He’s doing with your life, even if you don’t.” Wilson talks about the significance of the Saturday after Jesus was crucified. Though we focus on Good Friday and Easter, we don’t often think about what transpired on that Saturday. No one realized what was happening. No one thought Jesus would come back to life. As of that Saturday, everyone thought Jesus had abandoned them and they were all wondering “what now?” Yet Sunday was soon coming. “While our hope may be fragile, God is hope Himself.” Your world may feel chaotic, especially when you’re stuck in a Saturday, struggling hopelessly with your Plan B. But no doubt about it, God is still in control. And one way or another, Sunday is about to dawn.”

I liked this book a lot. I’m in a place where I’m going through a Plan B and I needed to hear Wilson’s words. Some of the things I already knew but the reminder was needed. The whole book can be summed up with this line: “The question isn’t can you trust God? Of course you can trust God. The question is can you wait? Will you wait? Will you continue to hope in Him even when His timing seems all off?” Wilson ends the book, wishing there was a way to promise everything will turn out as we hope but that’s not realistic. “Will we ever understand our Plan B dilemmas? On this side of heaven, quite possibly not. Does the way we respond to them matter? More than you will ever know.” Can we trust God confidently, even we things aren’t going as we thought? Even though things in my life aren’t matching the plans I once had, my trust in God has never wavered. Though I sometimes feel like He’s not listening, I know He is and I know I can hold Him to His promises. We just have to understand that our timing isn’t God’s timing. As Wilson ends his book, “God will finish what He started. Wait for it.”