Plans for the Day

While we may be asked about our plans as we rise with the sun each morning, we must always remember our plans our simply plans.  Our plans do not guarantee the direction of the day.  Many a day has gone awry.  Days go awry not for a lack of plans, but because of a lack of understanding that we have no control over what might unfold in our lives within the course of the next movement of the sun across the sky.  The Old Testament character Job is a man whose life reveals this reality as does the successful farmer of the New Testament parable who planned to build bigger and better barns.  (Luke 12:13-21)    

This is not to say the Word of God is anti-planning.  Instead, it is about living with such a sense of dependence on self that it becomes impossible to realize that self-sufficiency is only an illusion.  What gets us through our carefully made plans is not the plans, but the grace and mercy of God.   If we live within any other reality, we are likely walking in the footsteps of the man regarded as a fool in the parable.  

Some years ago I overheard a woman in conversation with someone else saying that it was God who woke her up every morning and for His daily wake up call she was always grateful.  It was an earful and an eye opener for this guy who was listening in to what was being said.  I always had figured the alarm clock, or my body's schedule was what woke me up each day, but what she said was like a jolt to my spirit.  Our life each day from the first eye full of sunshine is all about God being at work to sustain the life He gave to us at the moment of our conception.  Plans are good.  They are important.  But, never be surprised that there are interruptions.