Sundial

This past week I made a homemade sundial (sort of) for an object lesson in church. I was teaching about the time God turned back the sun 10 degrees as a sign that He would save King Hezekiah’s life (2 Kings 20), and my sundial got me thinking that sometimes in life we simply have to do the best we can with what we have.

For one thing, sundials are very hard to find. I have seen them as garden decorations, and being early spring, I thought I would be able to go into any number of stores and find one. In reality I went into a number of stores and found none. I’m not the craftiest person but I decided to make one myself. Using a dowel rod, paper plate, and piece of cardboard, I crudely fashioned a sundial. It was held together with a nail, push pins, glue, tape, and it looked like a third grader made it. But it served its purpose. When Plan A didn’t work, I had to make do.

Before people had clocks or watches sundials were the chief way of telling time. The problem with the sundial, though, is that they are not extremely accurate or very precise. Things can affect the accuracy of the sundial, like clouds, rain, or fog; and they are not nearly as accurate as our newer devices that give us to-the-second time.

But when there are no clocks, a sundial will have to do.

Sometimes in life we have to go with Plan B (or C, D, or E). When things do not go as we had planned, we need to be flexible. Sometimes life will rain on our parade, and we just have to do the best we can do with what we have.

Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” It is good to have plans, but sometimes they will fail. When they do, as believers we need to be flexible and adapt our plans to God’s purposes.