The Best Laid Plans

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."
- Anonymous Wisdom-at-Large

I had a new plan.  Naturally, I implemented it on January 1.  I am not above the cliche.  Among other things, I was going to write, on this blog, every day of 2012.

Life has a tendency to interfere with my well-laid plans.  The phone rings.  A child asks for help with homework.  A husband wants to talk.  Someone wants a meal.  Or clean clothes.  And those are the predictable interruptions.

What is being interrupted?  My plans.  My plans.

"For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope."  - Jeremiah 29:11

My plans are not always the plans that the Lord has for me.  I think my plans are for my welfare.  I don't think they will bring harm to me or to others.  Most of the time.  I want a future and hope.  But I don't really know how to plan for the future with hope.

Problem is, I like to think I know.  Don't I know by now?

I all too often plan for a future not with hope but with fear.  I prepare because I'm afraid.  My plans are made to avoid what I'm afraid of:  Risks.  New things.  Unpredictable things.  Things I can't control.

Problem is, what I can control is very, very small.  Maybe so very small that it doesn't even exist.

So when I plan, I'm forced to make my world smaller and smaller, hoping that I can find that tiny piece (Can you see it?) that I can manage by my own power, by the force of my will.

Problem is, I start thinking that maybe, if I can control that tiny piece, I can learn to control more.  And more.

And then I can play god.

It never takes God long to scuttle my plans.  He reminds me, interruption by interruption, who's who, God and me.