You'll Never See God's Plan Until You Look Back—And That's the Whole Point

"God, just show me Your plan, and I'll follow it."

Have you ever prayed something like that? I know I have. More times than I can count, honestly.

And you know what? I think most of us have prayed some version of that prayer at one point or another. We tell ourselves we're asking because we genuinely want to obey. We tell ourselves it's because we want to honor Him. After all, we're Christians. We want to do the right thing.

But can I be honest with you about something?

We want to see the plan so we can stay in control.

I know that sounds harsh. But I think it's true. We want the roadmap so we can manage it, prepare for it, fit it into our schedules and our comfort zones. Deep down, we want God to help us get what we want—as long as it's not too scary. As long as we don't have to actually give up the steering wheel.

That's not really surrender, is it?

That's negotiation.

And when you read the Gospels, Jesus never invited people to negotiate the terms first. He just said, "Follow me." That was it. No roadmap. No five-year plan. No detailed breakdown of what following Him would cost. Just an invitation to trust Him and take the next step.

Here's what I've learned over the past 33 years, and I wish someone had told me this earlier:

God doesn't show us His plan beforehand because seeing it would completely defeat the purpose.

See, the purpose isn't just getting us from point A to point B.

The purpose is teaching us to trust Him. The purpose is helping us let go of the illusion that we were ever in control in the first place.

Let me tell you my story, and I think you'll see what I mean.

The Knowledge That Made Zero Sense

It was 1991. I was 36 years old, and I was completely paralyzed from something called Guillain-Barré syndrome.

I couldn't move anything below my neck. I couldn't even breathe on my own. I was hooked up to a ventilator, lying in a hospital bed, completely helpless. It was absolutely terrifying.

The doctors told me I probably wouldn't walk for at least a year. Maybe longer. Maybe never, though they didn't say that part out loud.

Now, here's something you need to know about me: I was raised in an atheist family. I didn't know if God existed. Honestly, I didn't think much about it at all. It just wasn't part of my world.

But when you're lying there paralyzed, unable to breathe on your own, unable to move, unable to do anything... you get desperate.

So in pure, raw desperation—I prayed.

I didn't pray because I believed. I prayed because I had absolutely nowhere else to turn. I had run out of options.

And right in the middle of that crisis, something really strange happened.

I suddenly knew we were going to have a third son.

Not hoped. Not wished. I knew it.

It wasn't a voice I heard. It wasn't a vision I saw. It was just... knowledge. Knowledge that appeared in my mind, complete and certain. It was like I had read it in a book and absorbed it, but then someone had erased my memory of reading it. The information was just there. I knew it the way you know your own name or your birthday.

And at the time, this made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I already had two sons. I was paralyzed. My future was terrifying and uncertain. Why in the world would I be thinking about another child? It didn't fit. It didn't make sense. It didn't help anything.

But I knew it was going to happen.

When God Answers But You Still Don't Get It

Two months later, something miraculous happened.

I was healed.

Against all odds. Against every medical expectation. Against everything the doctors had told me. I recovered completely. I went from being completely paralyzed, unable to breathe on my own, to running five miles a day.

It was absolutely miraculous.

And then, exactly one year after my paralysis began, our third son—Dylan—was born.

That strange "knowing" I had experienced while I was lying there paralyzed had been right. It had come true, just like I somehow knew it would.

But here's the thing, and this is important: I still didn't understand what God was really doing.

I didn't remember my healing as God's faithfulness. I didn't see His hand in any of it. I just saw it as... I don't know, a lucky break? A medical anomaly? And then we had a new baby, which was wonderful, but it was just "life happening".

I went right back to my life. I went right back to not thinking about God.

God's plan was unfolding all around me, right in front of my eyes. But I was completely blind to it.

The 15-Year Setup Nobody Saw Coming

Fifteen years passed.

Dylan grew up. He became a teenager, like kids do. And he wanted to go to church. He didn't have his driver's license yet, so he asked, "Dad, could you drive me?"

Of course I said yes. I loved my son. I wanted to spend time with him. And honestly, I figured maybe I would get to see if this church thing was a "safe" place for him. You know how it is—you want to protect your kids. You never know what they might get into.

So I drove him to Saddleback Church in Southern California.

And then something unexpected happened. Dylan didn't just go to church. He brought me into that world with him. He invited me in. He showed me what his faith looked like. He shared it with me.

And then Dylan—the son I somehow "knew about" during my paralysis—became the person who brought me to faith.

Can you see what happened here?

The man who prayed a desperate prayer while paralyzed and was then miraculously healed... that man didn't become a believer because of the miracle.

He became a believer sixteen years later. Because he gave his son a ride.

The son he inexplicably knew was coming while he lay there paralyzed and helpless.

God's plan was in motion the entire time.

The full story of how God orchestrated 33 years—from paralysis to healing to a son I somehow knew was coming to faith I never expected—is in my book, The Desperate Bargain: How God Healed My Body and Rescued My Soul. You can get it on Amazon here.

But I couldn't see it at year one. I couldn't see it at year five. I couldn't even see it at year ten.

I could only see it when I looked backward from year sixteen.

Why God Doesn't Give You the Whole Playbook

Now, let me ask you to imagine something with me.

Imagine if God had shown me the full plan back in 1991 while I was lying there in that hospital bed.

Imagine if God had said to me in a loud, deep voice like you hear in the movies: "I'm going to heal you. You're going to have a third son. And in sixteen years, that son is going to bring you to faith in Me."

Now, I want to be clear about something. I'm not saying God always stays silent. He doesn't. He gives us enough light to take the next faithful step. He gives us what we need when we need it. He just doesn't give us enough information to stay in control.

The Bible puts it this way: "Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path." (Psalm 119:105, NIV)

A lamp for your feet. Not a spotlight illuminating the entire highway ahead to your destination. Just enough light for the next step. Just enough to keep you from stumbling.

So what would I have done with that full information as someone who didn't even believe in God at the time?

Knowing myself back then, I probably would have dismissed it as a hallucination. A stress-induced delusion. Maybe I would have thought it was brain damage from lack of oxygen.

But let's say I somehow believed it. Let's say I actually accepted that this was real information from God Himself.

I think I would have tried to control it.

I really do.

Maybe I would have tried to speed it up. "Why wait sixteen years? Let me find a church right now. Let me get this faith thing figured out on my own timeline. I want God to help my career NOW, not in fifteen years!"

Or maybe I would have tried to avoid it altogether. "I don't want my son manipulated by religion. These church people only want money. I think I'll keep him away from church. I'll protect him from all that."

Or maybe—and this might be the most likely—I would have spent sixteen years anxious and impatient, constantly wondering, "Is this the year? Is this the moment? Why is it taking so long? What do I need to put in place to be ready? Am I doing something wrong? Did I mess up God's plan? I don't see the results, should I do something else?"

Knowing the plan would have given me the illusion that I could manage it, control it, improve it, or avoid it.

And that illusion—the illusion of control—is exactly what God needed to break in me.

Not just in 1991, but over the course of fifteen long years.

And you know what? I'll admit something to you. He's still breaking it in me even to this day. I'm 69 years old, and I'm still learning to let go.

The Real Struggle: Actually Letting Go

This is what we really struggle with, isn't it?

We say we want to follow God's will. We say we want to trust Him. We sing songs about surrender. We pray prayers about obedience.

But what we actually want—if we're being really honest—is to see the plan first, evaluate it, make sure we're comfortable with it, and then agree to follow.

Maybe we want to tweak it a little to suit our needs. Maybe we want to negotiate some of the details. "God, I'll do this if You do that. I'll go there if You promise this other thing. Can we work a nice car into this plan? Maybe a bigger house?"

That's not faith, is it?

That's a business transaction.

Real faith means letting go of control. Real trust means walking forward when you can't see the whole path—just the next step.

And I think God doesn't show us the path ahead because if He did, we would never learn to trust Him. We would just trust the plan. We would trust the information. We would trust our ability to manage it all.

And here's the problem with that: plans change. Circumstances shift. Life throws curveballs that nobody saw coming.

God doesn't want us to trust a plan. He wants us to trust Him.

That's a huge difference.

Why God's Timing Feels Wrong Until It's Right

If you're frustrated with God's timing right now, I want you to know I completely understand.

I've been there. Many times.

But here's what I've learned over these 33 years, and I hope this encourages you: God doesn't show us the full plan because we're not meant to see it yet.

It's not because He's being mean. It's not because He's withholding something good from us. It's because seeing it would rob us of the very thing He's trying to build in us, which is trust.

God's plans unfold in His timing, not ours. And His timing is always designed for our transformation—not our comfort.

God is incredibly kind. But His kindness is aimed at who we're becoming, not how comfortable we feel in the moment. He's more interested in our character than our convenience.

The waiting isn't wasted time. The confusion isn't a mistake. The closed doors aren't accidents.

They're all part of the process of teaching you to let go.

What This Means for You Right Now

If you can't see God's plan right now, I want to tell you something: that's okay.

You're not supposed to see the whole thing yet.

What you're living through today—the confusion, the waiting, the closed doors, the unanswered questions, the prayers that seem to bounce off the ceiling—all of it might be the setup for something you won't understand for years.

That job you didn't get? That relationship that ended? That move you didn't want to make? That diagnosis you received? That hardship you're enduring right now that makes absolutely no sense?

It might all be part of a story you can't see yet.

God is writing your story in real-time—and He's inviting your faithful obedience to it—but you can only understand the plot when you look at it in reverse.

So what do you do while you wait?

Stop trying to see the plan. Start trusting the One who made it.

Let go of the illusion that you're in control. Let go of the need to know what's coming next. Let go of the idea that you can manage God's will if He'll just show it to you first.

Instead, just take the next step in front of you. Do the next right thing. Trust that God is working even when you can't see how. Especially when you can't see how.

Because here's what I've learned: God is always working. He's always moving. He's always faithful. We just can't always see it in the moment.

The Proof Shows Up When You Look Back

I'm 69 years old now.

When I look back across these 33 years since my paralysis, I can see God's faithfulness everywhere. It's like looking at one of those pictures where you can't see the image until you step back far enough, and then suddenly it all makes sense.

I can see the paralysis that led to the desperate prayer.

I can see the healing that defied all medical expectations.

I can see the strange "knowing" about Dylan that made absolutely no sense at the time.

I can see Dylan's birth exactly one year later.

I can see his invitation to church fifteen years after that.

I can see my conversion to faith because of the son I somehow knew was coming before he was even conceived.

None of it made sense in the moment. Not one bit of it.

All of it makes perfect sense now.

That's how God works.

How all the pieces came together over 33 years—the paralysis, the inexplicable knowing, Dylan's birth, the forgotten bargain, and the faith that finally made sense of it all—is the heart of my book, The Desperate Bargain: How God Healed My Body and Rescued My Soul. Get it on Amazon here.

So if you're asking today, "God, what's Your plan for my life?" I want to give you the answer I wish someone had given me all those years ago:

You won't know until you look backward. But when you do, you'll see He was there all along.

And more importantly, you'll see that not knowing was exactly what you needed. You'll see that the waiting, the confusion, the closed doors—they were all part of Him teaching you to trust Him instead of trusting a plan.

Some things may never fully make sense this side of eternity. I've made peace with that. But enough will make sense, if you look back long enough, to know beyond any doubt that you were never alone.

Not for a single moment.

Want help seeing what you might be missing right now?

I put together a short email series called "7 Ways God Showed Up When I Didn't Deserve It."

It's not about formulas or quick answers or three easy steps to hearing God's voice. It's just honest stories from my life about moments that only made sense when I looked back at them later.

If you're in a season right now where God feels quiet or confusing, where you can't see what He's doing, this might help you. It might help you look back long enough at your own life to notice He wasn't absent. He was just working in ways you couldn't see yet.

Subscribe to the email series here.

This is part of my story from The Desperate Bargain: How God Healed My Body and Rescued My Soul —a 33-year testimony of God's faithfulness, even when I couldn't see it.

You can get the book on Amazon here.