Plans & Expectations

The holidays seem like they were months ago, don't they? In reality, New Year's Day was only a week ago.

We come into a new year, a new anything, with plans and expectations--sometimes good, sometimes bad. We'll be more organized this time around. We'll keep that new leaf turned over for good, and maybe turn another one, too. We'll face certain trials and difficulties. Maybe we're filled with fear, whether for ourselves or for loved ones, or both.

I've found that expectations are hardly ever met. I don't need that explanatory speech I've been rehearsing in my head on my way to a meeting, or the leaf doesn't actually stay turned over for more than a week. (My grandmother had a positive spin on this quirk of life. She was a worryer because, she said, nothing she worried about ever happened.)

But I don't advocate worrying (as hard as it is not to do), and I don't put a lot of store in expectations and plans, because they're hardly ever met. I know that no matter what happens to our carefully laid plans, or what happens to us in the absence of plans, God will always be there to see us through. And God is an expert at planning--and changing plans on the fly when we screw things up.

So my plan for this year is to try to live out God's plan.
My expectation is that sometimes I'll succeed, and sometimes I'll screw up.
But I'm not worried, because God's plan can adjust to take me as I am.