God’s Plan B
In Doctrine and Covenants 115-120, many of the revelations deal with planning for the establishment of the church in Missouri. The Lord commanded the Saints to build a temple in Far West, and even gave them a timeline for its completion. The methods for the financing of the temple were established, and detailed explanations are laid out. Of course, we know that the church was expelled from Missouri before any of the building commenced.
This obviously is not the important part of the revelations, as they laid the groundwork for later temple building and establishment of places of refuge for the church and the Saints. My reason for focusing on the perceived failure of the specific plans is to illustrate that God’s plans don’t necessarily play out the way we think they should.
Referring back to Section 112, the Lord had great things planned for Thomas Marsh. When I read it, I thought that not even the Prophet Joseph had been given such a glowing mission statement as Brother Marsh. Then, as we know, he fizzled out so fast that all we remember about him is the butter cream story.
My point here is that God has a Plan B when we fail to complete Plan A. So, why did the Lord say so many wonderful things about Thomas Marsh and give such detailed plans for the building of the temple in Far West when he knew that both would not happen? You could also refer to the time of Moses, when the children of Israel rejected the Law of the Gospel for the lesser Law of Moses. We can see in both instances that neither group was prepared for Plan A.
I wonder if we were to have the prophet receive a revelation for us personally, would it contain plans the Lord has for us that we are not ready to receive? Are we living Plan A or Plan B, C, D, or what? Fortunately for us, God tailors and modifies our person plan to meet us wherever we are. Whether we are to be driven from place to place, or spend 40 years in the wilderness before we get to the promised land, is kind of up to us.
I think we should all take a minute and reflect on whether we are living up to God’s Plan A for us. If not, we can be sure he has a Plan B that will get us where we need to be eventually.