Learning to Not Plan

Been on a roll with the blogging lately, and I have been having really good thoughts and realizations.  I partly attribute this to the clarity and order brought to my mind when I write things down.

Last night Julie and I had a long conversation about the future.  It led to a realization that I have been learning a lot more from God than I realized.  Over the last 6+ months I've gone through phases of totally worrying about what I'm doing, where we're headed, money, and life in general.  I tend to slip into a week or two of being really dissatisfied with life and then I'll come out of it and be OK for awhile (2 months or so on average).

During these periods of worry I'll lay awake in bed until 2 or 3 in the morning just thinking--wondering about all the "what-ifs?"

I know I shouldn't worry...especially about the future.  Jesus says, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for today has enough troubles of its own."  But I still do it.  I hate it.  I know it's not only wrong but bad for me.

Worrying is a bad thing, because it is me trying to take the control that really belongs to God.  I can't have that control anyway, so why try to take it from Him?  When I do that I'm really saying "God is not enough."  Bill Randall, my pastor from Redding, wrote on Facebook yesterday that worry is "negative mediation."  It's like saying over and over "God is not enough.  God is not enough.  God is not enough.  I know better than He does.  I know better than He does.  I know better than He does."

My worry is based on uncertainty about the future.  What I realized last night is that in the midst of all those uncertain moments I usually have a handful of thoughts that are right and good.

I realized that I have stopped being such a problem-solver and such a planner.  In the past, I have tended to be a pretty disorganized person when it comes to keeping things neat around the house or around my office, but when it comes to figuring out the best practices and seeing how the pieces of a system fit together, I'm pretty organized.  I have an ability to load trailers so everything fits, and that tends to be helpful when I'm looking at an organizational situation where I need to figure out how different people and processes work together.

I know that God has given me the ability to solve problems creatively, but I was beginning to lean too much on my own understanding (Prov. 3:5-6).  I was getting proud of my intellectual abilities (not so much about knowing things, but solving problems).  Something needed to change, and last night as I talked to Julie I realized that I have become less of a planner, and that's a good thing.

Back in college I was opposed to the idea of goals.  It's weird and most smart people probably thought I was an idiot for being opposed to goal-setting.  Somewhere along the way I began to set goals again.

Goal-setting involves saying two things:
1. Here's where I want to be.
2. Here are a series of steps that will ensure I can make it to my goal.

My thoughts recently have been shaped by the book With by Skye Jethani.  Jethani talks about how we all are afraid (of death, failure, loss, and other undesirable outcomes), so we try to seek control of our circumstances.  He talks about how every human is motivated by fear and control.

The truth is that the only solution to our fear and control issues is to live with God.  Living with God makes our fears pale in comparison, and solves our control issue by giving the control to God.

Goal-setting takes control for yourself.  You determine where you want to be.  And then you determine what the best steps are to get there.

The life I want to live is a life with God.  I don't really care about anything else.  I don't know what I want my life to look like when I'm 30 or 40 (I'm 27 now).  God does though.  If I live with Him, He'll set the goals.  And He will determine the steps needed to get there.  And I don't need to know what the goals or the steps are!

All I need to know is what the steps are to living with Him.  I can take small steps to live with Him today, but I can't plan ahead and see the whole journey and just take a certain number of steps and suddenly live a perfect life with God forever and ever.  That's not how it works.  If I tried that I would just be taking control again.

For example, in the last few days and in my past, I have found that blogging helps me to think about God and what He is doing in my life.  However, it would be absurd to assume that can constantly maintain communion with God by blogging.  But, I know that right now it's helping, so I should probably keep doing it for now.

So there it is.  I don't want to be a planner.  I don't want to be a goal-setter.  I want to be a man who walks with God.  That's all.