His plans > our plans

We sat under a tall oak tree at our campus of California Baptist University. The day was perfect, the sun was out and she thought it was perfect to drink her Capri Sun pouch.  My best friend Pam apparently thinks Capri Sun pouches are perfect for having conversations. She just rolls like that.  

We laid out a blanket in the grass because we think you can't sit under an oak tree while drinking Capri Sun's without one, and talked about life. Our lives. If you know Pam, you know her life is the sum of a control freak plus the Don’tTellMeWhatToDo type of attitude. She's loud, she's independent, she's opinionated, she's blunt, and she knows what she wants and she will go long distances to get it. I'm pretty sure she has a printed list with bullet points and bold font somewhere of all the things she's had planned to do since the day she came out of the womb. Become a Dentist, marry Mr. hunka hunka burnin love in a Vera Wang wedding dress and a ring from Tiffany's, travel to Europe, all while raising her son, which, according to her, will be named Cornelius levi Mordecai. Or something like that. But seriously Pam? Cornelius? Really?Yeah...this girl is precise! But this time it was different. With honesty and tears pouring down her eyes, she explained her fear. Her confusion. Her change of heart. For years she's been planning out her life down to the T, and now she's experiencing her plans being crumbled at her feet and seeing her life taking a big detour. She admitted to ignoring the plans in the back of her head that told her she needed to be doing something else. That her life and her actions needed to enhance the Kingdom of God. She ignored them because those plans didn't fit hers. She explained to me how she was greatly impacted by one of her peers who, through his unashamed Christian walk, encouraged her to completely  surrender her OCD planned out life list, for the plans the Lord has had for her for so long, but that she had been ignoring. So who knows, one day she may be in Africa feeding hungry children possibly with her hunka of a hubby. 

In all this I thought about my life. My plans. The things that I'm doing. Are they really the Lord's plans, or are they mine? Because if they are only my plans, I pray that they may  bow down to the authority of the Almighty. Our lives belong not to us, but to the Lord. This is not to say we shouldn't plan, however, it means that we should surrender every aspect of our lives, including our plans and desires to the authority of God for only He knows what is best and will ultimately have a say in our lives. We should rest in the fact that the plans the Lord has for us are far more greater than the ones we have for ourselves. 

"In his heart a man plans his course. But the Lord determines his steps" Proverbs 16:9.