My Plan

It has been awhile, a long while since I wrote. It isn't that the Lord hasn't been teaching me or that I haven't been learning because I have. Perhaps it has been too much, too overwhelming to know where to begin. To know how to express the impressions being put upon my heart. I have tried so many times to write a post, but nothing. It has to come out though, messy or confusing as it is. So whether its "blog worthy writing" or not, I'm posting.

It follows me, everywhere. It has since college anyways. This question, no, more like a burning desire, to know what I am to do with my life. I changed majors, I changed jobs, I just start to settle in somewhere new, and its there, haunting me again. I'm fairly confident that this question is stuck on repeat in my head because of something else.

This isn't what I wanted. It isn't how I pictured my life. This wasn't my plan. I imagined a whole different life than the one I am living. I saw purpose in my plan. I felt created to fulfill it. I threw all of my hope into it. However, my plan failed. I've been upset, at times, even angry. My expectations led me to disappointment, hopelessness, and confusion. I have felt lost, purposeless. Most of all, I have questioned the Lord. Why? What was wrong with what I had in mind? Did I mess up? Did I do something wrong? Why did my plan not work out?

It has been hard accepting where I am at in life. No, that's an understatement. It has been war. Day after day I have fought battles between my heart and mind as I realize my plans did not and are not coming to fruition. Worn out and heavy hearted one day, I was crying out to the Lord on a run. I wanted to know, what was I created for? I mean surely I was created to fulfill the purpose I had been dreaming about my entire life, right?

Then it hit me. Who am I to tell God what I was created to do? Isaiah 29:15b-16 says,

You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, "He did not make me"? Can the the pot say of the potter, "He knows nothing?"   

In making my plan and holding my expectations I had been in a way telling God what I was created to do. What my purpose was in life. That I knew better than He did. Imagine a shield, a tool made for defending, saying to the blacksmith, "I am for striking!"A shield is ineffective in the offensive. The blacksmith who created the shield specifically planned for it to be a tool of protection and defense. God created me.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. . . . my frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my  unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.                   Psalm 139:13, 15-16

I am God's workmanship and He has prepared my life in advance (Ephesians 2:10, Jeremiah 29:11). He CREATED me. Thus, He knows what He made me for. He had a reason in mind when He created me. He knows my strengths, my weaknesses, my fears, my passions, and He had a purpose.

I could try and continue to do what I think my purpose is in life, but just like a shield being used for striking, I will be ineffective. To be truly effective I have to let go of my plan and accept His plan. It means releasing my pride, recognizing how little I know and how much He knows. It means sacrificing my desires in light of what He has done for me in giving me life. It means not leaning on my understanding, but trusting if He created me He knows what's best for me. It means not needing answers to the "why's" and the "what's" but just following in faith.

I have thought maybe I missed out on something in life because my plans failed. Really though, I could miss out on my true purpose if I remain focused on my expectations. Perhaps my plans would prevent me from fulfilling God's purpose for my life. Perhaps God's plan has something even greater that I ever considered or imagined? It could be scary, big, the adventure of a lifetime. I don't want to miss it.

Once again, I can't help but think of this:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6