Do You Have a Plan?

In business we are taught to have 5 year and even 10 year GOALS.  A business plan is a necessary element of most successful businesses, however large that business may be.  What's your plan?  What's your mission statement?  These are things we have all heard, some of us have even authored such plans.


What about life?  Do we need to write down a plan for our lives?  Should we have a general direction in which we will focus our attention?  It makes sense, doesn't it?


But we are followers of Christ.  The question that first comes into my mind is, who owns my life?  Have I given it to Jesus?  --And if I have given it to Him, is it not up to Him to take me wherever He wants me?


Is that faith? Or is that just an easy out for NOT having a good enough plan?


This verse may clarify things:
Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him…" (Psalm 37:5-7a, NIV).


If someone were to have asked me back in the year 2000 to write out my 10 year plan and what life would look like TODAY, I can assure you it would have looked NOTHING like it looks in reality.


My husband would have remained totally healthy.  A lifetime of facing the possibility of him falling out of remission to a life threatening disease would definitely NOT have been a part of my plan!!  My children would be in public school, and I would be a nurse practitioner, working about 20 hours a week.  My youngest son would have been a daughter (since that's what I assumed we would have back then...one boy and one girl) and he would NOT have  been diagnosed to be on the Autism spectrum!  We would have been living in a larger home, debt free, and traveling to our hearts desires.  


But instead, God used the unplanned stuff that happened in life, in spite of MY plans, to bring me closer to Him.  To bring me to a place where we I am working for His Kingdom, and a place where my heart is much less ego-centric, narcissistic, and materially absorbed.  Through the pain and suffering, God has changed me!  I'm not going to kid you, the journey totally stunk a lot of the time... but I really like where God has placed me.-- And I have my eyes set on eternity with Him, not just the few years on this Earth.


I guess I'm still not sure if we should go through life totally without a plan. Maybe we need goals.  Perhaps we should have some sort of life-destination in mind.   All I know is that when God moves us along the paths of life, we can seldom know- from one minute to the next- where it is He is going to take us; how we're going to get there; and sometimes we may not even know WHEN we've arrived!  If that's not faith... holy cow!-- I don't know what else to call it.