Column: So What's Your Plan?

In April, Jodi, Lily, and I spent a few days at St. Joseph Friary in Harlem with our second son Gabriel and the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFRs). Gabe is discerning religious life, and the visit was meant to help us better understand the life of the friars, his formation during the past year, and the novitiate—a period of more intensive prayer, spiritual growth, and detachment—in the year ahead.

One of the unexpected joys of the long weekend was a visit from Father Columba Jordan, who was passing through New York on his way home to Ireland. Some of you may know Father Columba from his YouTube channel, Called to More: lean and gray-haired, close-clipped and bushy-bearded, an animated preacher who often delivers two homilies at once, providing a running comedic commentary on his profound reflections as they unfold. When he vested for Mass, I was excited. When he stepped forward to preach, I was thrilled.

He began by speaking about a Biblical expression, “in the bosom of the Father”—explaining that it implies a turning toward God. He drew attention to a couple of young mothers who were also visiting that weekend. A baby seeks his mother, secure in her care and trusting that she will provide for and protect him.

Infants have no backup plan. They cry, and if it doesn’t work, they cry more loudly.

Father Columba then drew a parallel to our relationship with God the Father. Do we turn to Him, secure in His love, protection, and provision? Do we hand our problems over to Him, or treat Him like a stress-ball while we insist on managing things ourselves?

Is God your Plan A?

My first thought was, Of course He is! Sure, I have to remind myself to surrender, but He is definitely the one I turn to as soon as I turn away from myself.

So what’s your Plan B?

The follow-up question caught me off-guard. Think about it: Plan A is your ideal, but Plan B is the thing you are ACTUALLY counting on. It’s your security if Plan A doesn’t work out. The example Father Columba offered in our short conversation after Mass was this: I should have enough cash—but I’ve always got my credit card.

I constantly struggle to relinquish control to the Lord. I try to listen for His guidance and do His will, but I’ve always one hand on the wheel, in case things go south. It’s not that I take back what I’ve given Him; it’s that I never let go of it in the first place.

But if I’m truly His—His beloved child—I will turn toward Him, confident that He will care for me. I’ll cry to Him in my need. I’ll rest in Him, trust in Him, dwell in His bosom.

Last weekend, Lily and I took Jodi to see the movie Unsung Hero for Mother’s Day. It’s the story of an Australian family who moved to the States in the early 1990s after their father’s music production company failed. During their first several months in the US, nothing goes according to plan, and they are soon surviving day to day on prayers and charity.

In a key scene in which the kids are pretending to pursue a ship full of pirates to their island hideout, their mother urges them to burn the ships as soon as they reach the shore.

“It’s going to be a battle,” she says, “but if we know we can turn back, we will.”

Burn the ships. If God is truly Plan A, there is no place for a Plan B.

Nor is there a need.