However, I'm always about five steps ahead of God's plan. And by plan, I don't mean where I'm going to live and what job I'm going to have or anything inconsequential like that. I mean the stuff that really matters, the where am I going, how am I growing, what relationships am I forming. I don't really find myself to be a particularly imaginative person, but apparently I can daydream this stuff away. I get carried away and carried off with my own little plans - usually because I think I've finally figure out what God's doing. Something happens and I make it click like a puzzle piece that doesn't actually fit (our family has an inside joke about this - doesn't everyone's?). Clearly, this is why my life is this way. The past x number of years have been leading up to this moment and I can finally see how God has been orchestrating everything so that everything will turn out a certain way that I've foreseen/daydreamed.
Inevitably comes the moment where I realize this is not the case.
After a couple days of complete delusion, I realize that there's no way my plan matches up with what's really going on. And that fall back to reality really sucks sometimes. I guess because every time I jump ahead with the Plan, I'm looking for a way to make life make sense. My initial reactions to having my proposed logic shot down are not usually very positive ones.
The thing is, this ugly lightning bolt is usually just what I need. It's devastatingly humbling in a beautiful way. It brings me back to dependence on God and *His* plan. His plan which is, of course, so much better than my own. I am not where I would have planned myself to be. I most definitely would have planned the easy way. But looking back on my life, I know now there's no way I can imagine it better. Even my mistakes have been redeemed in a way integral to my place now. If I can trust that God took care of the past, why am I always jumping ahead of Him in the future? Why can't I just stop trying to "catch" Him at work and let Him work it out in His (most mysterious) way?
Sometimes, though, I think I wouldn't even give up these moments, no matter how discouraging they are, because they are the moments that I realize I am limited, but He is not. I am short sighted, but He sees all. I am confused and continuously distracted, but He is focused on loving me. And that's when I can concede. I'm trying to learn about dependency on God, because it's what's gotten me through some difficult times and it's a state of being that has incredible security in His love and faithfulness. And these are the moments when I fall from myself, am humbled by my own ill-conceived designs, and am reminded about His incredible, awesome grace. After I've tripped over my own shoelaces, He's there and He wants to carry me. And being carried by God to the future He's designed is so much more beautifully peaceful than running ahead and getting lost on my own.
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