God knew how it would all work out in the end. He knew the conclusion of His works, before He even began!

Don't you wish your plans would take shape and that you could reach the intended results of everything you hope for and want? I do! But sometimes my plans don't work out, due to events beyond my control, or sometimes, I don't plan it right. I can remember there are times when I have had great plans and then saw what I wanted to do was unrealistic. Then, alas, there were those occasions where I lost interest because other things more important came into my life. Poor planning? Yep. Human weakness to carry something out? Lack of wisdom to see the end of something? Right on! Sounds like I'm human. Sometimes I think all the success books about fulfilling goals are more like wishful thinking. A better way of approaching it is to get in line with God's purpose. If you are reading this, chances are you have been issued with an invitation to participate with God in His great plan.

We can take a lesson from God.

"Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other: I am God, and there is none like Me. Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done. Saying, 'My counsel (plans) shall stand, and I will do my pleasure'" (Isa. 46:9-10).

God, because of who He is, has the intent, the will and the power to carry out everything and anything He purposes! His plan from the beginning was to bring "many sons to glory" (Heb. 2:10).

The fact that it didn't go well for the parents of the human race was not an obstacle to God. It is something He accounted for and indeed planned for. Verse 10 goes on to say that He would, "make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering". It is easy to forget that Jesus Christ was "indeed foreordained in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God"(1 Peter 1:20-21).

Man's hopes and dreams are dashed on the rocks of their own ignorance of God and replaced with human self-confidence. Man started out wrong and continues on the same highway today, never recognising that the dilemma he faces is only worsening. How much better is it to hitch your wagon to God's rising star? His plans will stand and come to completion.

God has established His Festivals to cement our belief in His willingness and ability to complete His plan. The feasts of the seventh month picture the events of the very "end times", beginning with the "Day of the Lord", when God will cut man's time short and bring everything He has prophesied by the mouths of the Old Testament prophets to fruition.

You can see why observance in God's festivals is commanded. Your participation determines your belief in God. If you minimise the need to observe God's Holy Days, you may also be relegating the purpose He has held from the beginning as profane and of little consequence.

"Her priests have violated My law and profaned My Holy things: they have not distinguished between the holy and the unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them" (Ezekiel 22:26). Not observing God's Sabbath and having little or no interest to learn of the grand purpose imbedded in the meaning of His Sabbaths is taken by God as profaning Him personally.

God is thrilled about what He is offering you. It is paramount to Him that you feel the same way. How easy it is to allow personal trials to convince us that God isn't everything we had hoped? How painless it is to consent to the devil's reasoning, that the cares of this world should take precedence over God's plans? How effortless it becomes to forget His great plan for you.

Thank God for His great plan! And thank God that He is faithful to perform all His will.