On Making Plans

"Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future. Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.” 

 - Proverbs 19:20-21 -

There is so much pressure to know.

When we are in high school, we're constantly being faced with questions that beckon us to figure out what we're supposed to do with our lives. Where will you go to college? What will you major in? Where will you live? How often will you come home? What do you want to do with that degree? I remember being 17 or 18 years old and thinking to myself that if one more person asked me what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life, I was just going to scream!

But we make our decision, we graduate, get a job, go to college, or do whatever is next for us. But it's just the beginning.

We are faced DAILY with decisions, with plans, with expectations to make decisions that affect our plans. We're just expected to know.

I'm learning very quickly that I don't know. I don't know the answers and I don't know my plans. Most of the time I can tell people what my plans are for the next month or so, at least as far as what I'll be doing. I'll go to work, I'll hang out with this person or that person, I'll go to church, Jason and I may go out of town - we have plans. But the older I get (not that I'm that old) and the more I move through life, I'm learning that I don't have a plan and that I just don't know. For someone like me who is a complete "planner" and scores with the highest of "J's" on Myer's Briggs, that honestly stresses me out.

I don't know what tomorrow holds.

I don't know what I'm making for dinner tonight.

I don't know where we'll live in 6 months.

I don't know how to be the best wife.

I don't know our plans for the holidays.

I don't know when I'll get to run errands.

I don't know when or where my  husband will be working a week, a month, a year from now.

I do know that I'm learning, though. 

The Lord is teaching me to let go of my plans. He's teaching me that it's okay to not know. He molding me into the woman/wife/daughter/sister/friend who has strength to not rely on my own knowledge or plans (as comforting as that may be), but to rely solely on Him.

One of the most well known verses of scripture is Jeremiah 29:11. For years I've been hardened into thinking that it's so cliche to rely upon this passage because it's so overused, and many times taken out of context. But the truth is that it's God's word, and there's nothing cliche or overused about God's word.

These words are truth though. Proverbs tells us that man has many plans for ourselves, but that the purpose that the Lord has given our lives is the only thing that will stand. We can plan all day long, but even so, are we being obedient? Rather than planning our lives and hoping that God aligns His plans with ours, why don't we just have faith that He will make His purpose known to us? He tells us that He's got a plan. He tells us that He's got a good plan. We have a future in Him and we have hope in Him. But so many times, why isn't that enough for us?

Today, I'm relinquishing my plans and my purposes for my life. I'm leaving them in the hands of God, because His ways are better than mine and His plans are greater than mine. My life, my marriage, my job, my husband's job, my stability, my family, my friendships, my tomorrows, my everything is His.

Won't you join me in letting go today?

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