Five Year Plan

By
“Lord, you have examined me. You know me. You know when I sit down and when I stand up. Even from far away, you comprehend my plans. You study my traveling and resting. You are thoroughly familiar with all my ways. There isn’t a word on my tongue, Lord, that you don’t already know completely. You surround me—front and back.  You put your hand on me. That kind of knowledge is too much for me; it’s so high above me that I can’t fathom it.”

- Psalm 139:1-6 CEB -


I am a planner. I function best when I have multiple to-do lists, a detailed calendar, and I know what I need to do months in advance. Part of the reason I do this, is because it seems like there is always a billion things to do and a lot of pressure to succeed. I’m also an obsessive planner because it helps me cope with stress. We have so much pressure to be successful in life and to have our whole future planned out. I get a lot of comfort by being able to list of my 5-year plan to someone who asks. I feel accomplished for thinking I know exactly what is going to happen in my future. But, what happens when that 5-year plan changes? Or when you have no idea where to start with a plan for the future? That is why I love this section from Psalms. It is a reminder that our 5-year plan can be completely destroyed, but that it’s going to be okay. God knows each and every one of us so well. He knows how we think, how we feel, he understand us better than we understand ourselves. It is important to plan for, and think about the future. Thinking about what you want to do with your life is a pretty reasonable thing to be stressed over. That being said, it is so important to build a foundation rooted in God. When we build a strong foundation, we can stand tall when something comes in and demolishes our plan. My favorite part of this section from Psalms, is when it says “You surround me—front and back.  You put your hand on me”. How comforting is it to know God is there giving you a big bear hug all the time. God is there for us in our planned moments, and our unplanned moments. He is there when we complete our 5-year plan, and he is there every time we get off track, or feel like we have failed. We will make mistakes. We will make poor decisions. We will feel like we have failed. In all of those moments where we feel defeated, God is there wrapping his arms around us. When we build a foundation in God, we can lean on Him for support through the stress and pressure we face. When we rely on God we can stop relying on things like a planner or 5-year plan. Planners last a year, but God is forever!
To Read More:  Psalm 139: 13-18

Popular posts from this blog

God's Overlook

By
Image
“Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these ‘nobodies’ to expose the hollow pretensions of the ‘somebodies’? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.” - 1 Corinthians 1:27-30 The Message - As a person of smaller stature, I hate being overlooked. Some might argue that much of who I am is to stand out and be noticed. Yet no matter how great I think I am, the apostle Paul here reminds us that God has preferential consideration for those who are ‘nobody.’ God uses people who are lost, broken, and left out. Even if we are ‘somebody’ and think we have it all together, when we come before God we must recognize that our plans are silly foolishness compared to the work that God has for us. The trick of course is to not hate o
Read more

Light as a Feather

By
Image
 " And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them,  “If anyone would come after me, let him  deny himself and  take up his cross and follow me.  For  whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake  and the gospel's will save it.     For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?     For  what can a man give in return for his soul? " Mark 8:34-37   (ESV) There is a lot packed in these four verses from Mark. What stands out to me most through all this talk about losing or gaining our lives and our souls, is in verse 34 where we are told to “take up your cross”. This is an instruction I have heard many times through the church, but what does it mean to take up your cross? To me, taking up our cross is choosing to be a Christian everyday. The conscious effort to treat people a certain way, to rely on God, and to think about Him in our actions, decisions, and thoughts. It’s choos
Read more

Light in the Darkness

By
Image
 “Arise! Shine! Your light has come; the Lord’s glory has shone upon you. Though darkness covers the earth and gloom the nations, the Lord will shine upon you; God’s glory will appear over you.” - Isaiah 60:1-2 CEB - Darkness is a real thing. Not only as we get to the winter months where it might be dark before you get home from your afternoon or evening activities, but we know darkness on a personal level sometimes.  Darkness is that voice in us that makes us doubt ourselves. Darkness is that feeling that no one else knows what you’re going through. Darkness is cold isolation and separation.  Yet we know through the birth of Christ that God’s light breaks in upon us. The love of God that comes in Jesus finds us just as we are, just where we are. God’s love warms up the coldest isolation and lets us see ourselves for the beautiful creation God made us to be. One of my favorite images is the sharing of the Christ candle we do at our Christmas Eve services.  Something a
Read more