I’m a planner. I don’t think I was always this way, but as I got older I found out I like order. I have a huge planner and I plan my life out in it. I write down everything. Class assignments, church service times, getting coffee with friends. I’ve even been known to write down when I’m going to eat meals. I love knowing where I’m gonna be and when I’m gonna be there. Although organization and planning can be a great trait to have, it can also be dangerous. Because when plans change, it stresses me out. When I don’t have control of the plan any more, I don’t like it. It’s no surprise then that God has been teaching me lately to simply let go and let His plans take shape.
As my previous article talked about, I just got back from a trip to Atlanta. I made this trip to record a song for the first time. It was an experience I could not be more grateful for, and I give all the praise to God. Without Him, I know this would never have happened. Although this trip will go down as one of my favorite memories ever, it was also extremely challenging for me. It was so difficult because it forced to let go of my plans and just go with the flow. When I first got this opportunity, I thought I was traveling to Nashville. I didn’t know when (which was so hard for me, how was I supposed to write it down in my planner if I didn’t know the date?), but I knew I’d record in Nashville. I had just wrapped my head around that when all of a sudden the plan changed. I would now be traveling to Georgia instead. I know this doesn’t seem like a big change, but for someone who likes to know what the plan is, this messed with me. So now I knew where I was going but still didn’t know when. I just wanted a solid date to write down. Finally, a week later I received a date. January 7. My heart began beating faster as I realized that was in just 9 days. NO time to plan ahead. I began to panic thinking of everything I had to do. Book a hotel. Figure out if I would drive or fly. Make sure I had enough money to even travel. And oh yeah, write the song I would record. I went into this mode of crazy planning for days. Researching hotels. Looking up plane tickets. Calculating how much gas would cost if I did drive. And writing song after song. Trying to figure everything out on my own. I failed miserably. I tried to hold it all together, but then one night I kind of just lost it. I was in tears and realized I couldn’t do this alone. I needed God because my attempts to plan were failing. I needed His greater plan to step in and take over.
The minute I just opened my hands and let go of my plan and allowed Him to take it from me, I felt relief. I realized that I can’t hold onto my plans with clenched fist. It’s okay to plan because you can’t go through life aimlessly. So yes, I should make plans. But I should make plans with God’s will in mind, and even then, hold my plans with open hands so that God can take those plans and shape them to fit His greater plan.
Through all this I’ve started asking, why do I want to know the plan so much? I think this is the answer.
The reason I’m a planner is because I suck at patience. I don’t want to wait to know the plan. I’d rather just make it right now, so I don’t have to wait anxiously. But God doesn’t do it that way, unfortunately. He doesn’t show us our whole life plan at once (probably because He knows we’d be way too overwhelmed by that), but He does show us our life step by step. He shows us just what He wants us to do next. That’s scary to me, but if that’s the way God intends it to be, then I’ll wait for the rest. I’ll wait patiently with the hope that God’s plan is going to be better than anything I could ever come up with. And when life isn’t going well, and it’s hard to trust that the plan is good, I’ll even wait for God to give me hope.
“Waiting with hope is very difficult, but true patience is expressed when we must even wait for hope. I will have reached the point of greatest strength once I have learned to wait for hope.” –George Matheson
