The Best Laid Plans

Here was my “To Do” list for this week:

* Pick up grandkids from babysitter on Monday
* Christmas shop
* Buy postage for Christmas cards
* Buy wrapping paper
* Finish the Laundry
* Weekly Deep Housecleaning
* Buy ingredients for green bean casserole
* Make green bean casserole
* Thanksgiving at Joan’s
* Put up Christmas Tree
* Finish my monthly article for website

Here is what I actually did:

* Laid in bed
* Slept
* Took my temperature
* Slept
* Christmas shopped online
* Slept
* Ate soup and cough drops
* Slept
* Played Scrabble on my Kindle
* Slept

The difference between what we “plan” to do and what we are “able” to do is sometimes worlds apart! We are never fully in control; are we?

Here is what the Bible has to say:

“Now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.'” (James 4:14-15)

While we may make our plans and to-do lists, we must accept the fact that God may have something else in mind for us. 

“The best laid schemes of mice and men, they often go awry. . .” (from Robert Burns’ poem To a Mouse, 1786). 

As long as we keep flexibility in mind, whatever happens — happens, and we are still okay with it.