Despite how much I love making lists and planning for all the things, I know that ultimately, I am not in control of what happens in any given day, week, month, or year. The list of things I can’t control is so endless, it could make my head spin. Road work makes me late for an appointment and I spend an extra hour waiting to be squeezed in. A friend unexpectedly needs help with childcare and my day is turned upside down. Our family gets a stomach bug and my plans for the whole week have to be scrapped. (For a family of five, I’m lucky if it’s only one week!) And those are just the little things that I can’t control.
My lists, goals, and plans are productive and time-saving and part of how I get things done around here, but I don’t want anyone reading my posts about lists and plans to get the wrong idea. I love lists…but not the most. I love setting goals and planning for the future, but unless I want to live in perpetual disappointment and irritation, I have to hold them loosely. That doesn’t mean there’s no point in setting goals, or making plans. It does mean that I (try to) accept interruptions, disruptions, and complications as part of something bigger than me. It means trusting the master planner.
The Perfect Plan Isn’t Mine
I believe that God is in control – both in the world at large, and in my teeny, tiny little corner of the universe. That belief should shape my reaction to those annoying circumstances that make it impossible for me to check off my list or follow through on my plan for the day. He is the master planner. That unexpected curveball is part of the plan for my day…I’m just finding out about it at an inconvenient time.
Admittedly, I often struggle with letting go of my carefully crafted plans…my belief that I know best is hard to tame. But there is peace in knowing that I don’t have to carry the weight of choosing the best, most perfect plan for my life, or my kids’ lives.
I don’t have to carry the weight of choosing the best, most perfect plan for my life, or my kids’ lives.
“This God – his way is perfect. “
Psalm 18:30
My Journey In, Around, and To Faith
I grew up in church, and I’ve heard stories of people calling out to God in desperation, and God responding in supernatural ways that are powerful and undeniable. I feel intimidated to talk about my story when I compare it to a story of deliverance from chaos, abuse, and addiction. Mine is a testimony not so much to a point in time when I was saved…it’s a testimony to the everyday saving God is doing in me.
If my story were a movie, it would be a gentle character study, thoughtful and a little meandering. There are some ups and downs, but there is no blockbuster drama, nothing that makes it feel worthy of displaying the power and greatness of God. But in thinking about my story with the Lord, I see clearly the value he placed on me. And I’m so thankful. My story doesn’t demonstrate God’s love in a showy or sensational manner. Rather, it highlights His steady pursuit. Like the love I have for my own children, God loves me even when I can’t fully comprehend the depth of his love for me, or love him back the same way.
Around Faith
I was given the gift of being raised in a Christian home. From the time I was born, I attended the services, observed my parents volunteer in the church sacrificially, participated in family devotions, and sometimes fell asleep during family prayer times!
I have some fuzzy memories of being seven years old and wanting to ask Jesus into my heart (because at that point I knew he’d been knocking patiently for a while). My uncle read through some scripture with me, including Romans 10:9, and I confessed to him that Jesus was Lord, and believed in my little child’s heart that God raised him from the dead…so I was saved.
My belief in God was based on a child’s limited understanding, a decent amount of knowledge, but not much experience. My faith was almost certainly piggybacked onto what I was taught, what my parents believed, with no real depth coming from my own interactions with God. I don’t know if my parents saw any evidence of faith in my young life, but whatever fruit there was certainly spoiled and rotted as I grew into my teens and 20’s.
To Faith
I chose to pursue a life I thought I wanted, in which some days I “believed” just enough to punch my ticket to heaven, but not so much that I’d have to give up any control. And most days, I didn’t give him any thought at all. Occasionally, I felt guilty for ignoring God, and went to a church service where I hoped no one would engage me in more than a 10-second “glad you’re here” handshake. Most of my friends would have said that I was a pretty good person.
But my soul was empty. And I felt empty. Mostly sad in between circumstances that provided a temporary cheer.
I still don’t know whether I truly received Christ as a 7-year old and my empty feelings as a 27-year old were the result of the Holy Spirit inside me, patiently reminding me that I needed to come back home. Maybe I was a child of God who ran away to live with the family down the street for a while. Or maybe I wasn’t truly saved until much later, in which case, I can’t point to a specific moment in time that happened. But really, it doesn’t matter. My surrender to God is an ongoing story. It began before I ever had a single conscious thought about him, and will continue until I see him face to face.
I started talking to God again in my late 20s, only with a lot more emotion this time. What a friend we have in Jesus! He was there when I was only going through the motions, he stayed available through my years of only wanting to touch base when something big was going down, like when my grandparents died, or I really wanted to land a job and hoped he could work some miracle magic on my behalf.
But the true depth of his love was revealed when I finally said, “I’m sorry. I really want to make this work. And I know the way I’m messed up right now is my fault. Let’s try this your way. I give up.” His response: complete forgiveness, unfailing love.
True Faith
And for the past 20 years, we’ve had a real relationship. It’s still pretty messy. I’m constantly asking him why he doesn’t do things the way I think he should. I’m ashamed to say, I ignore him a lot. And every once in a while I’ve even wondered if maybe I made him up.
There have been times I just have to tell myself to believe in him, and it’s a conscious decision to say, “I know whom I have believed.” But there’s something intangible that proves to me how real he is. The proof is the reality of my changed heart and mind. I want to know him. I see him changing me, ever so slowly. The slow part is mostly due to me digging in my heels and trying to prove that I can change myself, thank you very much! So we play a little tug-of-war with control until he exposes my selfishness, and pride, and jealousy, and anger, demonstrating my complete inability to change my own heart. And I see him in real-life people who have real, life-changing experiences with him.
I see that he can use my experience to help me as I attempt to guide my children to a relationship with him. I see that I will probably react differently to my children’s hard questions, to their own journey toward or away from faith, than I would have without experiencing my own attempts at living without Jesus. I see that he can use me to encourage parents whose children seem to be walking away from their faith. Don’t lose heart. They may come back with a faith stronger and deeper and more real than ever before.
I am awed when I think that Jesus, Lord of all creation, sees me. And more than that, He cares for me! He cares for the soul that displays the mighty, awesome, transformational power of God…in a volcanic explosion kind of way, and he cares for the soul like mine that demonstrates the subtle, persistent, transformational power of God…in a river carving through a canyon kind of way.
What daily grace he gives!
He doesn’t say, I took care of that debt you couldn’t pay. I hope you learned your lesson. Don’t call me if you get in trouble again. He says over and over again to each one of us…you matter to me. I want you to bring your cares to me. I care for you.
He is the master planner. The big picture visionary with an unmatched attention to detail.
Living Faith, Loving Faith
As I was writing this, I thought of the story where Jesus was asked: what is the greatest commandment?
And you might know what Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
I’ve been married for 15 years. I love my husband, and I’d even say I’m still “in love” with him. But this relationship with God stretches back much further. He knew me before I was even born, and I was introduced to him shortly thereafter. I think maybe I’ve fallen a little bit “out of love” with him.
I believe I can say that I love him with all of my soul. That’s my deep down, grateful, awestruck love, that the creator of heaven and earth would sacrifice his position as King of the Universe, and even his dignity as a human being, to die, and pay for my sin. When I think of his love for me, I am moved to love him in return.
I would probably say I love him with most of my mind. Honestly, I’ve got lots of questions. Lots. of. questions. Mostly why questions? But I can say that I do love him with my mind.
Where I fall woefully short is the love in my heart. The kind of love that can’t wait to see him, the kind of love that’s willing to sacrifice a little bit of what I want in service to what he wants…to love others. I’m asking him to give me that love, because my heart wants to love so many other things. My heart wants to love my fun family vacation moments, the perfect Pinterest table settings, and my new iPhone. My heart loves comfort, and accolades, and people like me.
I read the words of an old hymn a few months ago, called “Love Lifted Me.” These are the words of the second verse:
All my heart to him I’ll give,
Ever to him I’ll cling
In his blessed presence live,
Ever his praises sing
Love so mighty and so true
Merits my soul’s best song
Faithful, loving service, too
To him belongs
I’m asking God to give me that kind of whole-hearted, clinging, living, singing, serving, best love that belongs to him. I’m pretty sure the only thing that stands in the way of his answer to that prayer is me. My distraction, my busyness, my pride, my desire to get what I want. Those sometimes painful reminders of my dependence on him for peace, fulfillment, grace, and abundant life.
Trusting the master planner is not my first instinct. I want to get back on track, find a solution, eliminate the pesky annoyance and get things done. But he wants my heart, soul, and mind to give over the control I misguidedly believe is mine…fully give it over…and trust that his way is the best way.
My Plans Are Not Your Plans
Disruptions to my lists and plans are an opportunity for me to respond to my loss of control with an attitude of excited expectation to see what plans God has for me instead. I’ve wasted a lot of those opportunities whining (even if only under my breath) about not getting what I want, just like I hear my kids whining to me sometimes.
I’ll keep making plans, but my prayer is to be willing to set them aside and skip the whining when my plans are interrupted. Instead, I should get right down to thanking God that I don’t rule the world. Honestly, no one wants that. Not even me.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.”
Isaiah 55:8
(If all this sounds weird to you, but you kind of want to know more about God, the very best place to start is to read the Bible for yourself. You can read it for free on the internet, or you can download an free app on your phone. I’d personally recommend visiting The Bible Recap or Through the Word.)
There’s nothing wrong with planning and listing and preparing for the future, but if you read this blog focused on lists and planning and think that my life is an endless march of perfectly scheduled days, orderly systems, and tidy spaces, you would be wrong. Some days are like that…and that’s my happy place.
But life is unpredictable, and spontaneous, and messy more often than I would choose if I could. Thankfully, I can rest in knowing that it is impossible for my imperfect plans to override the perfect plans of the master planner.
