With His guiding hands, God chooses to participate in more of the "behind the scenes" directing. He'll let you play the part for a while but will interrupt when needed.
And then, there are the other two fragile hands controlling our lives. They work for time.
"Okay, I need to wake up at 7:45 to be eating breakfast by 8, dressed and ready at 8:30, and out the door and backing out of the driveway at 8:45."
Sound familiar?
Well, if you're anything like me, it sounds extremely familiar. And it freaks you out. Let me explain.
I'm a planner. I make plans to plan. I plan who I'm going to see in the day to come, what my apartment (which I don't have yet) will look like, my to-do list for the following year, planning a time to buy conditioner when I still have 1/4 of a bottle (CAN I EVER LET IT RUN OUT FOR ONCE?), what to blog about after I pressed "Publish" to the previous one, planning a time to sit down and fill out my planner and making sure it's up-to-date, and so on.
Planning controls me. And sadly, I allow the weaker hands to possess the most power in my life too often. This flaw is a recent realization of mine. Time is nothing to fear, unless you're living outside of it. And even then, there are exceptions. That most certainly would not have come out of my mouth this afternoon. In fact I was talking to my friend earlier, and I quote, "I'm glad I won't be here this summer because I would drive myself crazy trying to plan every little detail about moving and the apartment. WHY DO I HAVE TO BE SUCH A PLANNER ALL THE TIME?" I then went on to tell her one of my goals this summer was to work on planning less. A plan to minimize planning--HA! I even brought this up to some of my friends, sharing with them this compulsive need to feel on top of it and as a result, planning needed to be cut out of my life. And then, as a typical day in the life of Madi Lee, the powerful hands showed me something neat.
I visited a church here at home tonight with a few friends of mine attend. I wasn't sure if I would take anything away from it. Please, allow me to enlighten you on the topic of the service: "Even the Lord made a plan with goals" Permission to laugh now, because I sure did. Not only did God have his own plans written down, He wants the one's we set to reach fulfillment.
The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. Proverbs 21:5
May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. Psalm 20:4
A lot of you can probably relate to this foolish habit of thinking you need to have every single detail mapped out before you thumbtack it. The example above represents a typical morning for everyone, I'm sure. But you see, planning is okay. Planning is not a sin, nor a flaw. And I shouldn't be ashamed.
How much you plan doesn't matter, but it is WHAT you plan for that requires caution. Turns out, it's good, healthy even, for me to set personal goals for my summer. And possibly one of them could be planning less on the things that in retrospect, don't matter all that much. I want my apartment to look as Pinteresty as college-sophmore possible, but it can wait. May I also top off the cake with the irony icing of today? I bought a watch today. I was in a hurry to church so I threw it on with the intentions of setting the time later. Turns out, I bought it broken. So for the entire night and until I was home, I was wearing a watch with no time. Maybe they were having issues with their employer, Time, and the hands wanted a break for a bit. I know I do.
So, I'm sorry Tom Hanks, but I disagree when you say, "We cannot allow ourselves to commit the crime of turning our backs on time." (Cast Away)
I hope this helped my fellow planners see a God's view on planning more clearly.
There should always be things you shouldn't plan. Some things you can't, some you shouldn't. I'm now going to eat some Oreos and dunk them in milk. I might have 4, maybe 5, but who knows? Sometimes, you just need to be surprised.
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