"God must have something better planned for you!"

Godly and well-meaning Christians sometimes try to comfort one another. Say you didn't get that amazing-looking perfect-fit job you had set your heart on. Some keen brother or sister is likely to say to you, "well, God has an amazing plan for you life: he's got something much better in store for you."

Has he? Well, yes and no. It all depends what you mean by better.

You didn't get the great 60K job? God has 90K and a company car in store for you? Maybe. Maybe not.

It is vital for our happiness and long-term faith that we are clear exactly what God has and has not promised.

Yes, he has amazing plans for you and for the world which really are better than all you could hope and imagine.

But it may be martyrdom - and perhaps a secret unheroic one at that. It might be unemployment. Or mental health problems. Or financial insecurity. Or just plodding on in the ordinary.

God has promised to be with you and to make you more like Jesus and to get you to glory, if you will trust in him. And that is better by far.

We do look to a better city, but it is a heavenly one who's architect and builder is God. He means to give you great riches. Maybe in the next five minutes; maybe only beyond the grave.

What is your best? It is cross and then resurrection. That, we know, is God's plan. The rest is just detail, circumstances, background. In a way it hardly matters.

The great thing is to set your heart on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, and on things to come. We pray for God's kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, but it is only given to us to play the part we are given. It may be in great apparent success or not, but the victory is already won and it is glorious beyond our comprehension. All our triumphs and failures, real or imagined, will be caught up in God's better, best plan. As we await the consummation and renewal of all things, we take the next step with Christ before us and with us and in us. We are more than conquerors, even if outwardly we are wasting away.