He Thwarted MY Plans!

Last week I sat down with my Excel worksheet in front of me and decided that since I had just celebrated my 33rd birthday, now was the time to start fresh. I set my mind to getting my house in order. The first item on my agenda was working out a schedule that allowed me to accomplish all of the things that I wanted to do. Did you read that right? The things that I wanted to do. So I sat right down and did just that; I broke my day into 9 different segments and assigned an activity for each of the 9 parts of the day for each and every day of the week. I get overwhelmed just reading that last sentence. Anyways, while making the schedule I realized that I had more things that I wanted to get done than I had time slots to fill in. No problem…I thought. I’ll just multitask.

The plan functioned perfectly for about 2 hours. I had planned for Monday to be my field trip day only to discover that the art museum was closed on Mondays, as was my back up destination–the paint-it-yourself ceramic studio. I decided that if we worked hard our day would not be lost and that we would still be able to fit in a field trip later in the week. But then Tuesday came and my 4 year old fractured her teeth. I spent that day at the dentist. Here I was 2 days into my new schedule, my new organized life and I was already 2 days behind! You might think that I would have given up but no! I continued pushing for my plans to prevail. I even canceled my Thursday Bible study so that I could get everything done that I wanted to accomplish.

Every interruption that came up throughout the week was rubbing me the wrong way. I viewed each disruption as an irritation and as a result, by Friday I held the name of everyone’s favorite dwarf. No, not Dopey. You got it, I was Grumpy! I just wasn’t feeling good. I tried a Snickers but in this case Snickers did not satisfy. I kept hearing a little voice inside my head saying “Put God first.” But I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t listen. I wanted to be organized and I wanted MY plans to work.

So today, in preparation for writing this devotion I finally picked up my Bible. This is the passage that blared at me: “The LORD…frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the LORD stands forever, The plans of His heart from generation to generation.” Psalm 33:10-11.

Um oops! I think I might have screwed up. You see I put my plans down on paper. I did not ask God what I should do or where my priorities should lie. I did it my way, trying to accomplish all of my goals. I found that I “can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.” Proverbs 19:21. I am humbled by my arrogance in thinking that I could run the show all on my own, well on my own along with my now not so fabulous looking spreadsheet. I am disappointed in myself and feeling a heaviness in my heart that I could veer so far from what I know God expects from me and from what I expect from myself.

Today, I will spend time reflecting on the words of Philippians 2:13: “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” When I sit down later this afternoon to make out my household schedule version 2.0, I will have a little meeting with my Boss first, I will ask Him what the priorities are and what He needs me to put first. I will pray and I will reflect on my mistakes for I have been refreshed in my desire to please Him and I truly want to do what He wants me to do.