Monday, October 19, 2015

Frequently changing plans

The Lord seems to delight in changing my plans. He knows me thoroughly and He seems to find it essential for my well-being to upset my schedule and my expectations frequently.
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I am a person who appreciates a well-organized schedule. I like a little variety in my routine yet I like having a routine for that variety to fit into. I would even be inclined to schedule my meal plan for an entire month at a time ... and save the meal plan to reuse the following year.
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Instead I hardly plan our family meals at all, simply keeping the supplies on hand for a small number of meals and planning in advance only about 1 meal in 30. There is a certain level of ordered routine to my day which is ignored more often than it's followed. I don't even take time each summer to plan my kids' school year, a practice so common among homeschoolers that it's practically required. I just find that my plans are disrupted so often that it's not worth putting much time into making them in the first place.
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I don't know all the reasons why God has me in this position where planning ahead is mostly a frustrating waste of time. I do know that it pushes me beyond my comfort zone, it forces me to rely more completely on God, it prepares my attitude to more willingly accept interruptions which are disguised opportunities to serve others, and it enables me to say yes to new plans without the disgruntled attitude which I might be naturally inclined to have otherwise. I can't see the big picture from my perspective but I can glimpse enough of it to realize that the frequent disruptions to my plans are well within God's plan for me, for my good.
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I wouldn't want to give the mistaken impression that I've given up on planning nor that my life is completely unstructured. I am a strong supporter of routine, I do keep a schedule, and I think that in general faithful Christians will have structure in their days and in their prayer lives. But as God is not limited by a calendar, we shouldn't be either. There are opportunities in front of us which were not anticipated and planned for last week. Opportunities to love, to serve, and to welcome others into our hearts.
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Right now my schedule says that I sleep until 6:10, I pray before the kids wake up, and they pray before doing their schoolwork or playing. As important as prayer is, even this part of my routine is frequently interrupted. Sometimes it is more important to cuddle a child in the middle of the night than to wake up and pray before my children get up. Sometimes my personal, just me-and-God time is less important than the person asking for some love. Sometimes my kids need to experience God's love for them, shown through me, more than they need to practice their personal prayer time. Sometimes that means they miss their Scripture reading altogether for the day, replaced with a walk through the neighborhood or a "family visit" to a doctor or another family outing (fun or not). The only real question is, did I use the disruption to my routine to honor God and love another person or did I use it to distract me from the Lord?

1 comment:

  1. Your husband supports you with his strict daily regimen...

    ReplyDelete