“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” Proverbs 3:5-6 Several months ago I listen to the excitement and giddiness in the voices of the kids on my street as they talked about school being let out for the summer. I even heard a chant from my childhood days “no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks”. They sat around and joked and were eager to share their plans for their new found freedom. However, last night, I am certain I heard them chant a verse from Mozart’s Requiem. They started off slowly but were soon banging their skateboards on the ground as they shouted“ Dies irae, dies illa, Dies irae, dies illa” ..... “Day of wrath that day ... Day of wrath that day” . They were talking about school shortly starting. It was a very dramatic about turn from 8 weeks earlier and there was definitley less happiness. Since I live on a cul du sac, which has a tendancy to amplify the sounds of kids voices, I could not help but overhear some of the plans that they had made at the start of the summer. I know that few achieved their goals. Many did very little except hang out on porch steps, shoot baskets or ride their scooters up and down my ramp when I wasn’t looking. During the summer they did come alive around 9:00 PM each night as they laughed and told stories, in their outdoor voices, outside my window. But, as Robbie Burns shared in his poem The Mouse, “the best laid plans of mice and men, often go awary” and so these kids just ended up chilling this summer instead of following up with their plans. They are not bad kids or layabouts but, they are like us many of us, and didn’t get to do what we thought they would do this summer. God has plans for us. The include us loving Him with all our heart, soul and mind. Sometimes we plan to do something that honours God, such as spending some time in prayer or reading His Word, and we don’t. Sometimes we plan to sign up to help out at church or visit one of the sick we know, and we don’t. Sometimes we plan to drop the additicion that we know is costing us a lot of money and is interfereing with our health and that of those around us, but we don’t. Sometimes our plans go awary however, in many cases, we should not write-off these dissapointments to the idea that plans fail. The evil one wants us to be confused, directionless, and ineffective and so when we want to do things for God, we often get sidetracked. We have to be careful to distinguish between what God allows in our life and what He has planned for it. Otherwise we act as if the sidetrack is part of His plan. For example, God allows us the free will to decide not to pray but His plan is that we pray. When God wants to get our attention regarding His will - His plan. He will use the Holy Spirt to have His Word, other people, or an uneasy feeling convict us. We must be attentive to those realities at reality and do something to fight the reaction to ignore the nudging. We must seek and then submit to His plan. We can pray and ask to be attentive and receptive to the prodding of the Holy Spirit. God has a plan. He wants our life to matter.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Aug 2013 08:29:15 +0000
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