I’m a girl who loves over communicating. A stubborn child who hates surprises and likes to be told what to expect in situations. You can count on me to be the one who has “the plan” inside my head even if I may act like I am totally going off the cuff in that certain moment and playing it off like a sporadic experience. NO, I am not as wild as you definitely perceive me to be, friends. Confession to readers, I’ve probably planned that “wild moment” months before only to be smiling so big now because I am actually living it out.
So let me ask you, when has God ever been a step 1, 2, 3 type of guy? When did He publish the book co-written with Jesus and the Holy Spirit about “the 11 ways to draw closer to your Father’s heart”? Oh, you never read that title? Well me either because it doesn’t exist. God doesn’t work that way.
Ever since being accepted onto the World Race God has done more than just challenge me, He has wrecked me with this concept of planning. He’s spent hours watching me pour myself into plans to get deeper in the Word, plans to be the “most fit” person on the trip, plans to naively save more money, plan to make more money in the weirdest of ways, and I know He was shaking His head during all those sweet moments He gazed upon me and my faulty heart making plans for the relationships that I would leave behind.
You know what I learned? God doesn’t plan but He DOES have THE PLAN. God relies on us to hear Him, see Him, come running straight into His arms, and to trust that He’s read the plan more than once that finely, perfectly, vividly details our lives. God doesn’t spend hours scheming late at night writing things down as to how He will get every single cent to pour in for that $17,017 that I have to raise to go on the World Race or how He will fix my family’s faith issues while I’m away or even how He will move me to wherever I’ll end up after those 11 months. He doesn’t let His eyeballs grow red, itchy and raw when the early morning hours come and He is still trying to find the right things to factor in. He does not cry when things should make sense but they don’t. God doesn’t even have any sort of concept of a deadline. He smiles because He knows in “the plan” it is already written down in black sharpie marker that I am to go on the World Race, that my family will come to love Christ with everything they’ve got, and the place where I will find my wild-hearted self after 2017. He wrote that all down before the beginning of time and it was just as perfect then as it is now. He can rest assured that He IS the Yahweh of the world and what He says, goes. If anything God needs a reminder, but the planning has already been done.
God doesn’t plan, but He has a plan.
My favorite depiction of God’s plan for our lives is that of a GPS. Don’t be skewed here as I just told you that God IS NOT a sequential (one, two three) type of Lord, He “sets our paths straight” and leaves the rest in our hands because He loves us effortlessly. The process all the while is meant to strengthen our faith in regards to whether we follow true to what He has detailed before us or not. So, the end destination is already determined. Where we need to get is mapped out by the Big Man upstairs. But, as free-willed Christians we get to chose what roads to take, where we will stop and take rests, and the ways in which we will find ourselves “lost” and in need of directions, ignorant to the fact that the GPS just keeps saying “recalculating.” The moment we are given access to the directions, hence turning on that GPS, is when we say yes to Jesus. Everything changes and the journey only gets more beautiful.
Lately I feel like I have been struggling for breath under a mountain full of question marks and uncertainty has befriended me in keeping me up at night. Hence I tend to ask myself “God is my GPS broken?” He lovingly always responds with a no, but I do wonder why certain things ever cannot come to a finite conclusion in my life. Those of you reading I want you to know that I struggle often and those struggles are really not pretty things I am dealing with. They hurt. It takes a whole lot of bravery and courage to be vulnerable on a social media platform or even in a room full of people you love, but you know what I’ve learned? God honors that intense whimsy of letting people in deeper. No matter how many plans I write in the best of handwriting, on the most beautiful paper, with the finest Pilot pen God has the authority to override any of them.
Here’s something I want to clarify, God doesn’t call up an angel one day and tell them, “Oh Paige is supposed to find herself meeting a very influential person this week who will change her whole outlook on Me could you take care of that when you get a second? Maybe put it towards the top of your to do list? Sorry, I forgot all about this because my week’s been so busy.” NO, you are far more important to Him than that. God doesn’t see you as a set of boxes He has to check to get you from point A to point B for His glory, He doesn’t look at you like you look at your list of projects at work. You are no burden. You are nothing He’s forgotten about. The reality of it all is that God is never early, never late and always on time. So why should I spend my fickle time planning when He’s already equipped me with what is needed in that exact moment?
Ever heard of the story of David and Goliath? David didn’t plan that day on how He would take down the giant. He didn’t go over all the procedures he had finely detailed the night before taken straight out of the “How to Conquer a Giant” book. Again, that book doesn’t exist. He woke up that day and lived his extravagantly normal life and when asked by the Lord to step up, David did. David raised a tool that he knew how to use well and used daily, his sling-shot, and defeated Goliath. When the other soldiers tried to put their armor on him, he refused it because it wasn’t him. Now THAT is letting God’s rule have dominion in your life. What happens if David had planned weeks before to start a workout regiment, time spent daily that would eventually help him “buff up” to one day be the one to volunteer for this attempt to slay Goliath? You know what probably would have happened? Guaranteed he would have been so consumed in the plan that specific day God asked him to step up that he would have found himself rushing off to keep that commitment instead of partaking in one of the greatest defeats in all of history.
Disclaimer, let me say that God doesn’t hate plans. When I make them or you make them He does not find ways to punish us for not trusting Him enough or whatever silly reason we come to think. He warmly welcomes these plans in, but He expects those who love him to be willing to break plans, takes risks, and be obedient to His call above all else. When the plan is all you see, how can God lead you to the situation He’s made you for?
Today I was reading about the disciples because who doesn’t aspire to be like those faithful followers and was struck by what some verses in Matthew talked about. Directly pertaining to their obedience in going out to do the work of Jesus, the 12 disciples are lovingly warned about the act of making plans. Jesus tells them “Don’t think you have to put on a fundraising campaign before you start. You don’t need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light.” Clearly in those words He tells them they will need some things which may require a plan, but to not spend all of their efforts in trying to figure out how they are going to do what they are about to do and to just do it. Too much planning inhibits what God has for us.
My advice to you is that if you find yourself frazzled, at your wit’s end, and looking for more answers than the number of questions you intend to have answered –LIKE ME, PAIGE ELIZABETH LINDNER– just STOP planning. Give God that piece of blank paper and let Him totally do His will with it. If you take anything from this beautiful batch of “heart vomit” know that God is so for you, your best interest has already been thought out much earlier than the moment that is before you. Things you experience, whether they be certain or not, are given to you, shown to you, or asked of you because you were made for them. Take that to heart. God has a specific call on your life and when we plan, we strip God of that privilege and opportunity to see HIS plan for our lives while we are distractedly worrying about ours. Your plan is worthless and God’s is everything. Trust Him, says the girl that struggles to do so.
