Proverbs 16:9 — A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.

As I write today’s devotion, I am feeling the strength of this scripture in more ways than one!
I am in mid-air, hoping against hope to make a very unlikely connection in Detroit on the way to Canada. It seems increasingly likely that I will have an overnight stay in Motor City.
When my company travel department made my reservation I asked them if the proposed connection was feasible, and they assured me it was. The airline had assured them that it was a workable connection. I don’t think they checked with God though …
King Solomon knew that it didn’t matter what we think is a good idea, or a plan …. He understood it so well that he said it again and again. Proverbs 3:5-6 which is known so well as to not need quoting, or Proverbs 19:21, “There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.” It’s as if he were saying to that hypothetical son to whom the Proverbs were addressed, “listen, this is important … listen, let me put it another way … listen, have you got it now?”
There are some wonderful devotional books that nowadays don’t, perhaps, get read as much as they should. Two or three of them … Brother Lawrence’s “The Practice Of The Presence Of God”, Julian of Norwich’s “Revelation Of Divine Love” and Thomas a Kempis’s “Of The Imitation Of Christ” are special treasures to me.
It seems likely that the encapsulation of God’s sovereignty at the top of this devotion, Solomon’s message in the Proverbs, comes to us from “The Imitation Of Christ”.
Thomas wrote in Latin of course, and his phrase was “homo proponit, sed Deus disponit” which may be exactly translated as “man proposes, but God disposes”. The whole passage is beautiful:

For the resolutions of the just depend rather on the grace of God than on their own wisdom; and in Him they always put their trust, whatever they take in hand.

We see from Thomas’s wisdom that the disrupting of our plans is God’s providence for the just. It is the very fulfillment of Romans 8:28. The events that occur in our life may not follow our plans … my journey may not go in the direction I have planned, but The Lord is directing my steps.
This plane will land when it lands. Maybe I’ll get to Canada today, maybe tomorrow. Maybe I’ll sleep in a nice hotel bed in downtown Toronto, or Maybe it’ll be on an uncomfortable seat in an airport terminal in Detroit … but the end of it is what another of my heroes (heroine really — it was Julian) said … “but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”