When We Lose the Privilege of Plans

In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.

Proverbs 16:9

We could go to town one day per month if the river wasn’t too high.

Our four-by-four had a long exhaust, and if the height of the water allowed it to peek above the surface, we could cross. Tightly strapped seatbelts couldn’t stop our team of eight from bouncing around, leaning on each other and bumping along as we navigated the river’s murky depths. 

Life in an African village on the equator was hot and sticky. During the rainy season, mud made it nearly impossible to travel. Even walking to a neighbor’s house would land you on your back in the mud, covered from head to toe, surrounded by an instant crowd of children laughing and pointing at your foolishness. I would grow desperate for “Town Days” during those long stretches of village quarantine.

My friends couldn’t understand why we wanted to go to town. The village had everything we needed, so why leave unless it was to visit a relative? I think that is when we began bringing Cadbury chocolate back to them from our Town Days.

We would awaken before dawn while the tribe still slept. By lantern light, I would dress and carefully apply my treasured tube of lipstick in an attempt to feel like “myself” for a day. A small squirt of perfume would complete my efforts as the low rumble of the team vehicle drew near the door of our mud house. 

With anticipation and nervous excitement, we would round the last bend before the river came into view, hoping that today would be a day we could get out.

Disappointment rose like nausea on the days the river was too high to cross.

Silently, we would turn the car around, deferred hope sitting like lead on our hearts. Back to the daily grind whether we liked it or not. There was work to do and we would just have to return to doing it. 

Faithfulness is a challenge when the heart longs for a break and plans are thwarted.

But refreshment and provision were privileges, after all, and sometimes they were just not available to us.

My hunger for selfish comfort was exposed during those years. The security I found in carefully laid plans was challenged. I began to understand that plans are a privilege, and the execution of them in the way I wish, a high privilege indeed.

I learned to yield my day, its plans, and the interruptions to those plans, wholly to the Lord.

I discovered the freedom that comes to the heart, mind, and soul who surrenders the outcome of her plans to God.

My heart, once holding white-knuckled to her plans and their outcomes, let go. Or perhaps more accurately, those white knuckles were forced open by circumstances beyond my control. 

We can either yield the outcome of our best-laid plans to God, or they will be demanded from us through circumstances beyond our control. In this, we have the freedom of choice.

I did not know about this choice, the choice between my control and His control, before it was taken from me by a river in Africa.

I wish I had. But even if I had understood the liberty and peace that fill a heart surrendered to God’s outcomes, I still, truth be told, probably would not have let go. 

I loved my plans. I still do.

Proverbs 16:9 gives both grace and hope to the Planners among us. #Covid19 #faith #plans Click To Tweet

There is no command not to plan. Plan away. 

But in our planning, let us surrender the outcomes, the establishment of those plans, to the Lord who goes before us. Herein lies hope. 

The Lord sees the big picture of our lives. He exists outside of time. He is not bound by the hours, the weeks, the months, the years by which we measure the success of our planning. The Lord’s outcomes are for our good, and for eternity. We can trust Him with our best-laid plans, even the ones that don’t turn out as we hoped.

We never starved in Africa. We always had something to eat. We were hungry at times, we were sick at times, we were afraid at times, we were exhausted at times. But our times were in His hands, and at the exactly right time, we always had everything we needed.

The high privilege of planning has been dealt a serious blow by the #Coronavirus. #faith Click To Tweet

Circumstances beyond our control have rendered the outcome of our plans uncertain. Plans around the world have been stripped of timeline and productivity. We don’t know what to do.

It is a good time to allow your plans and the way you make them to be refined.

Some plans to which you once devoted time and energy may now be irrelevant, unimportant, or even ridiculous. One Town Day, I opened my precious tube of lipstick only to find it had melted in the equatorial heat. The importance of lipstick became irrelevant in light of our need for beans and rice.

Circumstances beyond our control have a way of rearranging the priority of our plans. Time at home may have revealed to many of us areas of our lives that need to be placed at higher importance, replacing other, less urgent things that have consumed our days.

Get alone, get quiet with God and your plans. Invite Him to examine them with you. Write them down, every last one, all the clamoring plans that have been disrupted and the ones that leave you nauseated with disappointment.

Surrender your plans to the Lord, and write a prayer to Him trusting Him to establish your steps. He surely will, and He has plans for your good.

Lord, I bring my plans to You today. Show me the ones to abandon and the ones to keep. Establish my steps in Your way and Your timing. Amen.

@audreycfrank