In the secular world, wise people will tell you how to run your life. They’ll tell you that in order to succeed you need a 1, 5 and 10 year plan. That you need to write that plan down, and that you need to work toward the goals you established when doing it. Very few people succeed by accident – most are working toward something specific.
For 10 years, and with satisfactory success, we followed that advice. In fact, one of our first conversations together as a couple – even before we were married – was planning. We worked hard toward our goals, sacrificed, and accomplished pretty much everything we set out to get: 2.5 children, a house, a succession of better jobs, travel and adventure, and adequate financial stability.
For the last 2 years, I’ve been disconcerted that we haven’t had a plan. Our plan went as far as New York, and we weren’t really sure what was supposed to happen next.
In the past couple months, during which we’ve still had no set 1, 5 or 10 year plan, its occurred to me that despite this missing, and apparently key, part of our lives, things have unfolded pretty well anyway. And I’ve begun to wonder if maybe it’s not the planning that’s responsible at all. That maybe things happened not because of us, but despite us.
Maybe the key thing we need in life isn’t a plan. Maybe it’s obedience.
I’ll have more to say on this in future posts… we’ll make a series out of it.
We do the planning, God controls the outcome. Wish I could think of the Bible verse that covers that, but I’m blank at the moment. The first few plans are all out there, on paper, but do it for a while and it becomes internalized, like a kind of narrative of your joint lives. Look forward to reading your further thoughts on this subject, hope you don’t mind me interacting with them.
I agree. Being a business major and working in sales, planning was something instilled in my head for most of my adult life. That’s all I did my senior year was develop business and personal plans or life goals. I used to be extremely anal about “sticking to the plan”,but then I got married and had some kids. America is really bad with having pre-set goals for us, especially for 20 somethings. Get your degree, get a good job out of college, get married as soon as you have a job, then buy a house, then have your 2.5 kids, then start saving for your kids college. Do it in that order and by the time your 30 or your a failure. It’s no wonder were are the most stressed out nation. With all the changes that Brooke and I have gone through in the past 2 years I think we would have gone completely crazy by now if we didn’t believe God was doing the planning and had something better in store than we could plan ourselves. In fact really the only thing that has worked out in the order and time frame I planned out was being married before 28, everything else has dramatically changed. But whatever, I’m happily married with two great healthy kids and am moving back to the beach, so whats their to complain about. I actually it can be harmful to plan too detailed, because it stresses you out and can make life boring. Ok, peace out.