“The Lord brings the plans of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the counsel of the peoples.
But the Lord’s own plans shall stand for ever,
and his counsel endure for all generations.”

These are words of reassurance to me, Lord, and to all those who wish humankind well and are concerned about its future. I read the papers and listen to the radio and watch television, and I see the news that darken humankind’s existence from day to day. “The plans of the nations.” All is violence and ambition and war. Nations plan how to conquer other nations, and humans plan how to murder other humans. Every new weapon produced in the armament race is present witness and potential instrument of the black thoughts that humans entertain today all over the world, of “the plans of the nations” to destroy each other. Mistrust, mutual threats, spying, blackmailing. The universal nightmare of the international power struggle that threatens the very existence and continuation of humankind.

Before that brutal evidence of world-wide violence, good men and women feel the frustration of their helplessness, the uselessness of their efforts, the defeat of good sense and the flight of sanity from the international scene. “The plans of the nations” spell misery and destruction for those very nations, and nothing and nobody seem to be able to stop that insane race to self-annihilation. More even than worry for the future, what harasses the mind of thinking people today is the sorrow and surprise at the foolishness of humans and the inability to make them see reason for their own good. When will that madness stop?

“The Lord brings the plans of the nations to nothing.”

That is the assurance and that is the hope. You will not allow, Lord, humankind to destroy itself. When I think of it, those words, those “plans of nations” referred originally to a situation of many centuries ago, when the nations around the People of God plotted against it and against one another for mutual destruction. And those plans were brought to nothing. Humankind is still alive. History continues. In that history the plans of destruction still continue, but then the watch of the Lord also continues and holds back the hand of destruction from the face of the earth. The future of humankind is safe in his hands.

Against “the plans of the nations” stand now “the Lord’s own plans”, and that is the greatest consolation of the believing person in their thoughts and care for their own race. We don’t know those plans, and we don’t ask to be told about them, since we trust the Planner, and it is enough for us to know that the plans exist. Being the Lord’s plans they will be beneficent for the human race and they will be unfailing in their execution. Those plans will safeguard each nation and defend each individual in ways he or she does not know now, but will learn one day in the joy and the glory of the Lord’s salvation. The Lord’s victory will in the end be man’s victory and the victory of every nation that puts its trust in him. His plans are the beginning on earth of a blissful eternity. 

“The Lord’s own plans shall stand for ever,
And his counsel endure for all generations.”