Each week ‘The “A” Team’ would discover some innocent people facing a dastardly ‘bad guy’ plan, which they would seek to resolve. Their first conflict resolution attempt usually resulted in them being captured and imprisoned by these aforementioned ‘bad guys’, leaving the injustice to prevail. But rather foolishly these ‘bad guys’ tended to imprison ‘The “A” Team’ in a garage or warehouse that handily happened to contain a broken down car or truck, a load of welding gear and a scrapyard full of junk. They would then use their hour or so imprisonment to miraculously transform the junk into armour plated flying submarine thingy that would enable them to free themselves from their captivity, catch the bad guys and redeem the oppressed innocent in one swoop. After this miraculous resolution ‘Hannibal’ would say “I love it when a plan comes together!” – everyone would laugh and marvel at his top rate planning power – credits would roll and we’d wait expectantly until next week’s problem, imprisonment, impressive plan and implausible solution unfolded!

Sadly after just five years and 97 episodes something happened, either all the innocent people who were under oppression had been released, or ‘Hannibal’ had lost his planning powers – either way the world was deprived of this heroic team as the TV series ended.

As I have grown up, life has revealed that things don’t always work out like they did in all 97 episodes. Bad guys are not always stopped, innocent people do not always get freed, cars can rarely be fixed in an hour, spare parts are never lying around but usually need to be flown in from another country and will cost slightly less than the car itself, and “I love it when a plan comes together!” is usually a statement of relief when you’ve successfully built a flat-pack unit and discover nothing was missing!

The show was not completely void of life lessons though! Having a plan does make a difference, working as a team and allowing people to do what they are good at can make a massive difference and working towards a common goal that brings freedom rather than oppression inspires people. (Truths that existed far before ‘The “A” Team’ and can be found in the Bible.)

But the phrase “I love it when a plan comes together” still bothers me. When something doesn’t quite work out the best it should I wonder, if only I had planned better would the results have been better? Would my family function better, would my workplace be a better environment, would my finances be more stable, would my relationship be stronger, would our church impact more people, would more people be freed from oppression, would more ‘bad guys’ be stopped, would I have created an armour plated flying submarine thingy that could actually accomplish loads of things? The answer is actually ‘Yes’ (apart from the armour plated flying submarine thingy I would suggest!)

Planning and working hard on solutions is a good thing to do and I passionately believe the Bible calls us to plan and invest our best for God in everything we do. However there is a greater truth we need to grab hold of tighter and allow to impact us deeper. Proverbs 3v5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”

Our ultimate success is not down to us, there will always be things we miss, forget or are simply unaware of. God however holds the past, the present and the future in his hands, He is the One who was and is and is to come, He knows the end from the beginning. Bottom-line, look to and trust our God whose “plans always come together!”

 Mark Madavan