On Plans and Why I Shouldn't Make Them

You really can't plan your life. To everyone out there who's currently working a plan, dreaming up a plan, or thinking that someday there will be a plan...my advice is to stop.

I don't mean that you should stop setting goals or trying to accomplish things or stop investing wisely with your time and resources and everything else. I just mean that you should stop clinging to your plan.

I don't say these words without feeling conviction. See, I was the plan girl. I like plans. I have theories about why plans work, about how things happen, about the when and where and who of everything in life. That's been me in a nutshell.

Here's the thing though. God doesn't think too much of my planning. I have seen it throughout my life as He's changed my direction, refocused my attention, or simply bumped me off of the road I was on. And now, as I sit here on January 12 of 2011, I am beyond amazed at how wrong my plan really was.

See, I had plans on how and why and when my life would move. I had it all figured out. I should have learned earlier that my plan(s) may not work out according to my original thoughts. Yet I was (and often still am) stubborn. Stubborn and so uncertain and blind to so many things.

It has been over three decades of watching God work out His plans for my life. I didn't get from there to here without frustration and wondering and annoyance but, in the end, I find myself here. I am just an example of a person who is very slowly learning that my plans are really not the best. I would be well served to realize that my story and where I find myself today is fully not the result of my planning and that what is to come can't be written by me either.

I am fully and completely dependent on a God who works out His plans in His timing for His purposes. I should hope that one of these days I would set aside my own desire for writing the story and simply let Him work it out. For now though, as I prove to be the world's slowest learner, I am content to revel in His goodness and faithfulness even when I try to peek just a bit more around the corner at what is to come.

Legal

As I picked up my little jello cup at the end of my lunch today I noticed what it said on the top: "Happy is still legal in all 50 states." It made me smile but then it made me think (definitely more than I would have anticipated from my sweet meal closer). Happy is legal in that there are no laws against it, no government mandates that forbid us from enjoying our days to the fullest.

However, it made me wonder, would we really be changed if it were made illegal? Do we really choose happiness often enough that we would be traumatized if it were not allowed? Of course we can all say that it would be horrific, that of course it would change us. Really though, how often do we choose to be happy instead of frustrated or angry or annoyed or sad?

It made me think just a little bit about how happiness is legal but more than any law, it's my own option whether I will be happy in the midst of my days. There is a blessing of living in a land where there is freedom of all sorts but if I don't exercise that freedom then it ceases to have much meaning.

So I guess this is a random post but it was a good reminder for me today that being happy is fully allowed and that I need to choose it so that it can fill my days and overflow to those around me! For there really always is so very much to be happy about!

Alexander and I

Some days just don't start out the way I want them to. There's nothing that I can point to as being wrong and I know deep in my heart and mind that I have nothing to complain about. Yet I am being grouchy.

Everything just seems a bit more overwhelming, a bit more frustrating, and a bit less in keeping with how I want it. Some might say it's just Mondays in general. Others might say I woke up on the wrong side of the bed (although that would imply that I slept in bed instead of on the couch last night which would be an incorrect implication). Either way, it would be simple enough to just chalk it up to a rough day, to say that situations just aren't aligning and that I should just wait until tomorrow for things to look a little brighter.

A tempting option, no doubt. Who doesn't sometimes just want to throw a pity party for the day and let everyone else deal with their bad mood until they're ready to be cheerful again?

I'm tempted to do the same, I really am. However, I honestly don't think I have a leg to stand on when I consider what I am called to live like as a believer in Christ. Last time I checked, there really isn't a picture of Jesus just being a jerk to people because He felt like it. He wasn't known for just blowing the annoying people off or for pouting in a corner when He didn't get His way. There's nowhere that I see Paul telling me that it's cool if I want to speak negatively, throw around a little bit of a fit, or generally have a foul attitude just because it's how I want to act.

The reality is that I'm called to a higher level. I'm called to be a light in the darkness, to be doing away with negativity and coarseness. I'm called to reach out in love and compassion to the most unlovely of people. It's not just a calling on the days when I feel like it, it's a calling every single day that God gives me.

So it leaves me wondering, how exactly do I fight against what I want to do and instead be the cheerful girl who focuses on the positive and doesn't just sit down in a pity pile? So I think about Jesus (which is always a good place to start). While there may not be stories of how He became frustrated or angry for no good reason, there are plenty of stories that show just how human He was and the Bible is quick to tell us that He was tempted in every way that we are. If that's true, what might He have been doing that would keep him from being a grumpy Gus?

I'm going to just guess here but I think that it has something to do with the way that He would retreat into solitude, how He would go off and spend time in prayer and meditation. Not just once but often. Regularly. On purpose. For long periods of time.

There's value in that. I know it because I've experienced it. Could I likely benefit from the same refocusing time? Absolutely! Could it help refine my attitude and turn me from selfishness to compassion and from negativity to optimism? It certainly couldn't hurt!

So perhaps today, instead of just giving in to the temptation to be a brat, I will take a bit more time to spend away from everyone, to put a bit more focused attention on the truth of the scripture, and to give a little more time to talk to my Father.

Oh, and Alexander? He can keep his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day to himself! :)

What now?

6.5 months.

How has so much time gotten away from me?

How very much has changed since my last post. I almost don't know where to start. I almost don't know if I should even start. There is a part of me that thinks that maybe I should just let my season of blogging be over. That I should not try to pour any more of myself out into this computer for whomever to read.

Then I remember that I had goals for 2010. I even wrote them over on the right side of this page. One of them: cultivate artistic ability. Another: Live a life of risk. Also: Spiritual disciplines.

Does this blog not serve to help me along the journey towards completing these goals? I feel as though it does, or at least that it could. The story of this Jen is not completed. The truth is that in many ways it's only just beginning. I don't think it's fair to myself to simply stop writing forever as though I have actually reached where I hope to be. For I haven't. In many areas I'm not even close. So I think that perhaps I should write again. Not for those who might read this but rather for me. Which, in the long run, is who this whole experiment really should have been for anyways but I suspect that's another topic for another day.

So I may only have a little over a month of 2010 left but maybe I can make some progress on my goals. Just maybe, I can work a little farther along this path before we ring in 2011. There is much to say, many stories to tell, beauty to capture and hold onto and ponder.

Maybe this little corner of the internet is the place.

I kind of think it should be.

Begging

I have thought so very much about prayer in the last couple of weeks. Thought of what it looks like in my life, of what God calls it to be in our lives, of what it accomplishes and what it doesn't. I am nowhere near a finite explanation of any of these things but the pondering has opened up some new places in my mind and led me down unexplored paths. Today I'll share just one of the many.

I found myself telling someone recently that we must pray. That we must pray and that we would beg God on our knees. As those words left my mouth I realized that I had more to say, that the sentence wasn't complete. So I continued on. We must beg God...on our knees...for His will...to match our desires.

You see, I am so very human. In the humanity, I long for things here on earth. There is healing I so hope for, souls that I long to be saved, earthly things that I still desire. Yet in my prayers, I tend to go one of two ways. Either I ask only for His will to be done. Or I ask only for my desires to be fulfilled. If I'm to choose, the first is where I'd rather land but the truth is that I believe that God is not just a God who gives the bare minimum to His children. Rather, I believe that He gives abundantly, heaping blessing upon blessing in our lives when we deserve absolutely nothing.

I don't want anything other than what God wills for my life or for the lives of others. That is the one thing I desire above all others. Yet, I also long for other things, some more 'holy' and some more temporary. So in this recent discussion of prayer, I found myself realizing that it's ok to have a desire and to bring in to the One who is sovereign and fulfills every need and watches over every care. Yet in the bringing, I want His will and His glory to be my first goal, my primary hope, the one thing that I want above everything else.

Sometimes though, there is such a sweetness in seeing the places where His will intersects my deepest cries. Those are the moments when I fall, yet again, in amazement and awe and worship, before the God who not only listens, but who cares enough to orchestrate our desires to match His when we give ourselves up fully to the opportunity. These are the moments that leave me ever more in love with my Lord and ever so much more willing to trust Him with all things in my life and the lives of those around me.

For He is faithful and He loves. That, friends, is the very best that life has to offer!