Purpose in Place of Plans

 June 17, 2022

When my good friend Clark agreed to tutor me in Spanish, I never imagined how it would impact my Bible study. In English, the word “for” has more than one meaning. If I say, “I’ll give you ten dollars for your lunch, “for” means “in place of.” If I say, “I am here for the conference,” it points to the end purpose or goal of my being here. 

Recently, I learned that in Spanish, there are two different words for “for.” “Por” is “in place of, or “for the sake of,” while “para” looks towards the goal—“I am working for the election.” As I was reading Revelation 1:9, John says he was on Patmos “for the Word of God and for the testimony of Jesus.” In the original Greek, the word “for” is like our English word; it has multiple connotations, which made me wonder about what John said here.

John was on Patmos “for the Word of God”—this was God’s purpose for having him there. But he was also there “for the testimony of Jesus.” This was what landed him on the island. He never intended to vacation on Patmos, but his testimony put him there. He crossed the powers that were, so they exiled him to shut him up. That was the mechanism that placed him on the island. But the mechanism wasn’t his purpose for being there. His purpose was “for the Word of God.” God wanted this book to be written, and the only way he could get John to do it was to place him where there wasn’t much else he could do.

Often, we have ideas for how we want to live our lives; how we can be most effective, reach the most people, accomplish the most. We have plans for our lives, but God has purposes for our lives which in order to accomplish, must often cut our plans off at the knees. God had a wider audience for John’s message than John ever could have imagined, and it was by being constrained, hemmed in, exiled on a lonely island that God began to weave his tapestry for John’s life in a way John probably couldn’t see when he first landed on those isolated shores.

He was on Patmos for the Word of God—that was God’s purpose. He was on Patmos for the testimony of Jesus—that was God’s means. All this tells me I must be quite careful in my prayers. If I only see my purposes, my desires and plans, I am apt to pray prayers that in effect, short-circuit God’s greater plans. I think I know what is best, just like the child believes eating bowls full of candy and not going to bed are best. But God sees a larger picture that I often cannot imagine. We see “in a glass darkly,” Paul said; unable to discern or imagine what God wants to do with our distress. The trick is to pray beyond our plans into God’s purposes, which is why we’re told to pray always “in the Holy Spirit,” according to the Word of God.