“A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his
steps.” Proverbs 16:9
Have you ever been at a point in your life where you feel
dissatisfied, restless, and as if you’re surrounded by regrets? Ideas, plans,
dreams, hopes, desires…..something seems to have prevented so many things from
coming to pass in our life together. Finances, health issues, and being “tied”
to a place for various reasons have seemed to be our biggest obstacles. We
can’t or won’t dismiss and ignore all of the wonderful things that HAVE
happened and been fulfilled, but this sense of restlessness and feeling like
we’re just going through each day without coming closer to reaching the dreams
we’ve had for a long time is where we’ve been at for a while.
As I’ve been chatting about this with God, I saw a picture
of architect’s plans laid out on a table before two individuals. I understood
one to be myself or my husband and the other to be our Divine Architect, the
Master Builder Himself. We were looking at the plans together, discussing each
aspect of them. We would point things out to one another, each making
suggestions or explaining our thoughts behind the plans being drawn a particular way or even agreeing to make
adjustments to the plans to better suit the overall end goal. What I loved
about the picture I saw was that even though our Architect had so much greater
knowledge than we had, He was willing to plan with us and even adjust things
according to our ideas and perspective.
This picture made me think about how at the very beginning,
God set up this idea of working together on plans as He accepted Adam’s input in
naming all of the creatures of the earth (Gen. 2). Later, God and Abraham
shared such depth of relationship with one another that God refused to hide
from Abraham His plans for Sodom and even allowed Abraham to “tweak” His
original plan for the city (Gen. 18). Even before that crucial discussion, building
up to that point we see how the relationship between them grew over time with
each sharing their hearts and thoughts and ultimately, revealing their plans to
one another and working together toward what was being built and established.
I believe that God invites us into a relationship that
includes a partnership with Him – one in which we listen to one another, trust
each other, and have such depth of relationship that we can plan together, with
the Master welcoming the input of the layman. We were created to have
relationship with Him and work alongside of Him, bringing heaven to earth in
the most natural ways.
I think this sense of restlessness, dissatisfaction and
regret come from our timing not being
the same as His, coupled with our inability to see the final plans in their
entirety. I remember not long after I got married my parents were building a
new home. I was devastated to have “lost” the home I was familiar with and I
just couldn’t visualize what my dad was describing to me over the phone. Personally,
I need to SEE things. I’m a visual learner. When things are described to me in
an auditory manner, I often can’t translate that into a visual picture in my
mind. It leaves me frustrated and, in the case of this new home that would
never feel like “my” home, it just made me cry. I couldn’t see beyond this
sense of feeling lost, adrift, and even abandoned in a way, despite the fact
that I had begun a new adult life with my husband. Life was changing and not
only did it seem like I had no say in it, I couldn’t see ahead to the plans for
the future. I wanted answers NOW. I wanted to know not only the immediate next
steps, I wanted to know all of the ones that were to come and how that was all
going to turn out in the end.
Right now, Bri and I have ideas of what we want the plans to
be for the future. We see some drawings on the table and are working with our
Architect, but we want to not only get moving on the designs, we want to be
living in the finished project and enjoying it for years to come. As I type
this, I’m thinking that part of this is learning to actually enjoy the process,
rather than chafe against it. It’s also about letting that relationship between
Master and layman continue to grow and enjoying that, as well. I believe God is
inviting us to have those conversations with Him that change His mind and alter
His plans, but in a way that still accomplishes His ultimate goal through the
process of give and take. He gave us free will with a purpose and invites us to
surrender it to Him. We can do that knowing that He is a good Father who loves
us deeply and only has the best plans in mind.
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