What do Enron, Custer, and Brad & Jennifer have in common?

Failure. It's never pretty. Enron, Worldcomm, Arthur Andersen, General Custer, and Brad & Jennifer are all examples of failure to some degree or another. If there's one thing in the world we hate to admit as humans, it's failure. No one likes to admit that the plan they developed and implemented failed.

We tend to blame accounting practices, battle plans, and Angelina Jolie for the failures in life. But what about the greed, pride, and self-centeredness that cause most human problems? Why don't we address those issues and admit a need to change our character? Because it's personal, that's why. Admitting that there are character flaws in our life is something that we all find hard to deal with. It's easier to place blame than take responsibility. The plan most people adopt in life is to mess up over and over and blame it on everything but their unwillingness to change.

The plans we make for life end up being more like a Band-aid when what we really need is a pride-oplasty. We listen to Oprah, Geraldo, Rush, Al, Bill, or Montel and hope for the best. We keep making plans and placing blame and come up empty in more ways than one. If that doesn't work we go to church or read the Bible or pray and ask God to give us some sort of cosmic Mapquest with turn-by-turn instruction. Other people try putting a bunch of world religions together and living by relative truth and developing an incredibly complex spiritual system and hope that works. So how well are our human plans working to solve life's problems? Not too well, obviously.

So what about God's plan? If God has a plan, what is it?

God's plan is simple: He wants to redeem humanity. Wait a minute...What about world peace, famine, child abuse, terrorism, abortion, divorce or my kid that needs to go to Brat Camp? What's God's plan for that? The answer is still the redemption of humanity. Don't blame the Democrats, Republicans, Muslims, your parents, your spouse or your kids. Be a part of God's plan of redemption. Remember, God's plan is pretty simple: Redeem humanity. Our part in that plan is to "...act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God" (Micah 6:8). Here's another way to look at it: "We are God's work of art, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has already designated to make up our way of life" (Ephesians 2:10, NJB).

God's plan of redeeming humanity started by becoming like us. He chose to do that by having Jesus be born to a woman named Mary, a virgin. Because Jesus was God and man he showed us what it meant to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God...perfectly. Jesus loved the unlovable, cured the incurable, and railed on the religious. He sacrificed his life for humanity and took all of our sin on himself. He forgave our sins when he didn't have to and explained grace by his actions. After he died on the cross for our sins he rose from the dead. When we believe that and place our trust in a relationship with him, he gives us the power to live redemptively too. Jesus said, "As the Father sent me, so am I sending you" (John 20:21, NJB). So God's plan for us, as Christians, is to be a part of his redemptive plan. We're supposed to live redemptively.

Redemptive living makes dealing with other people's failure much easier. Redemptive living will also prevent a lot of failures from happening. Acting justly, loving mercy, and walking with God...He never said it would be easy. He did say that's what Christians were created for.

Have a great day.