Why Plan?

Holiday plans are lighting up our calendars and sparkling with festivities, aren't they? Even the Magi made plans (and changed them) when they saw the star in the East. So I think it's a good thing that we follow suit.

I love plans.

I dream up plans.

I write plans.

I've had plans published .

I live my life to make my plans come true.

Yet God remembers the teenaged girl I used to be. Full of dreams. Full of big assumptions and theories. Full of plans.

And He is not fooled. I am no longer a teenage girl. Without revealing my true age, let me just say I am now older and wiser.

I am educated in all the wisdom of what planning can and does do to a person's mental image of life...especially when that person must answer to all the people who know that person best...her family.

My family holds me accountable for those plans I make.

And I've learned it can be short of embarrassing. Plans can make us socially inebt. Plans can paralyze us. Plans can deceive our good intentions. Plans can turn us into false prophets.

Plans can also be gifts. Plans can open doors to new acquaintances and new contacts. Plans can make us dream bigger and sometimes soar to new heights. Plans can turn heads and open closed minds. Plans can awaken the good in people.

I've never said plans are not good. Heavens, I wouldn't think of saying that. What would the world be without plans? What would my home look like without plans? I still love to plan. I've already gone over a thousand plans in my head for 2009. But, again, I'm older and wiser.

I make plans. I do not live by them.

Case in point...remember my phobia of our co-op plans earlier this school year?  The co-op is going along wonderfully. The children are learning all sorts of new and helpful things. The mother/teachers are learning even more.

The plans however...those beautiful, color-coded, best-laid plans...didn't get us through the first day. I think they were changed even before that. They have been changed and revamped and resorted so many times that I have probably used two ink cartridges just printing out my own children's new schedules.

The plans created behind the scenes have caused much stress and commotion and sideline meetings and misunderstandings and miscommunications and, yes, even, some hurt feelings. The actual doings of the co-op have been a blessing and a vindication. God took the plans made by our human hands and reworked them to His glory and His purpose. It has turned into a great success...plans aside.

I've learned a lot from watching what plans can and cannot do when people get their hands on them.

So let me contradict myself once again.

Do I believe plans serve a purpose?  Of course I do. I'm still making them. I'm still using them. I'm still toying around with a few. I still carry a cumbersome planner on the car seat next to me.

But I only make the plans. I never interfere with the life God has given me to live.  Well, okay, never say never.  ;) Let's just say I try not to interfere with God's will in my life.

This revelation brings me to my current Advent plans.

See...I'm still planning and dreaming...and loving it.

Ask me tomorrow how many times I made God laugh.

This week I plan to share my holiday family plans, our holiday curriculum plans, and my holiday cooking/baking plans with all of you.

I must warn you, they are simple plans. As simple as simple does. Because I always like to trust God for the larger plans He has for my life and that of my family's.

Comments

[Juli]

Sounds like a good plan to me. :) I too like to keep plans simple and flexible. We might miss out on His plan if we don't.