Chance vs. Plan

Things used to seem to happen merely out of luck for most of my early years, and even now I can remember complaining about such things, things happening the way I did not want them to. Now that I feel I have settled down in a new home quite successfully, I come to think of this complicated, unanswerable question of whether things really do happen out of chance or based on any kind of plan or predetermination...

Last week, when I attended the worship at my church, the pastor told us a story that shows that God's work is full of purposes for every one of us and how everything is already determined, and we are too shortsighted to alter God's plans. And this story has brought a permanent change on my outlook on life in general.

Here is how the story goes...
The story revolves around three families who are preparing to be on their way to church on one Sunday morning. One family, just when they get in a car and try to start it up, finds that their car is broken down from the cold weather, and they live about half an hour away from the church. They have never ever missed any service for past few years, and this has never happened to them before. The other family wakes up and finds both of their children sick, so they run to see the doctor right away. This, of course, has never happened to this family before, especially on Sundays. The last family wakes up 20 minutes late but runs to the church as soon as they can. They arrive 20 minutes late to the church. This family has always been on time to church, and this was the first time in 5 years that they have woken up late because the alarm stopped working in the middle of the night. By the time all three families arrive at church, they see that the church has been burnt down 20 minutes ago.