Change
Have you ever gotten to a point in your life where you reckoned your plans with reality and said to yourself (maybe even audibly), "No, no, no! It wasn't supposed to happen this way"?
I know I have.
Often.
Recently, even.
I've heard it said, "The only thing constant in life is change."
And boy-oh-boy is that true in my life these days.
Change is all around me.
Change is in my family.
My dad now "works from home," sometimes.
My mom is in the midst of "remodeling" our home.
My oldest brother is now engaged.
Another brother has twin baby boys!
Another brother is pretty much traveling the nation this summer with his job.
My sister seemingly gets promoted in the corporate world on a quarterly basis.
And I just moved from Lynchburg, VA to Jacksonville, FL on a faith decision that God was going to work out the details of my life for His glory (job, housing, etc.) with no sight of what was and is to come.
Talk about change!
Change.
My friends aren't even immune to it.
While one friend is slipping on a wedding dress and walking down the aisle to say "I do," another friend is posting Facebook photos of sonograms with captions that read, "We're due (fill-in-the-in-blank with a due date)!"
My ice box is getting buried behind save-the-dates. (Could it double as wallpaper, maybe?)
The normal clothes in my closet are losing its battle against my ever-growing personal stock in David's Bridal gowns. (Does anyone really "just shorten them and wear them again"?)
And my brain is getting to the point where I simply can't keep up with all the cutesy names and modern/made-up spellings of names people are concocting and using for their little ones these days.
What's. a. girl. to. do?
With all said, I readily note that maybe change isn't such a bad thing after all.
In fact, change can be a good thing. a very good thing.
I suppose if we're honest with ourselves, we'd note that change can even be considered to be a GREAT thing.
Even though change can be a good thing, if you're anything like me, you don't thrive on change.
Quite plainly, I don't like change at all.
I'm a creature of habit.
I like routine.
order.
a semblance of "control" over what happens to me.
At church, I often sit in the same place.
At any given restaurant, I have no need of a menu. I always order the same thing(s).
Even grocery shopping got boring for me after a while because - you guessed it - I always bought the same things.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a boring person.There's just something about routine, order, sameness, that gives me a sense of comfort, happiness, security.And what's so wrong with that, right?
Everyone needs to feel a certain sense of comfort, happiness, and security to thrive in life.
You see, the problem isn't in those things - comfort, happiness, security, etc.
1. The problem lies, for starters, in the object in which those things rest:
Is it in a house?
A car?
A name brand fill-in-the-blank?
A job?
A salary?
A relationship?
Another person?
A name/reputation you've built up for yourself?
[All of those things will, at one point or another, fail to bring you the comfort, happiness, and security you require them to. Hence, a problem.]
2. And the problem with relying on things that bring us a false sense of security, happiness, and comfort continues to weigh upon us until it extends to alter our perspective on what God is up to in the midst of all of the change going on in our lives. We fail to recognize that God's plans for our lives are far superior to our own.
When you get right down to it, I don't like change because I'm a perfectionist planner. I like to plan, and I (even more so) like to ensure things will go perfectly according to the plan. But the longer I live, the more I see the Biblical truth,
"Man plans his ways, but God directs His steps" come to light.
I've also heard it said that man plans and God laughs. Perhaps, He does laugh at our limited knowledge of His ultimate plan? Or perhaps, He doesn't. Perhaps, He refrains from laughter and just smiles at the thought that His ways, thoughts, and future plans are so far beyond what we could even imagine, and He's delighted in the fact that He knows more than we do.
He loves us, of that I'm sure.
But I've come to this new thought recently: "God not only loves us; He loves to surprise us."
With all said, during times of transition in life (a.k.a. the "this isn't what I planned on" moments of life), leave yourself room to be surprised by God. And while, yes, He's into the detail work of our lives, remember that He's also the Master Planner. The surprises He has in store for your life may not be covered in birthday party confetti and decorated in decadent buttercream icing. The surprises He has in store for your life may just sneak up on you one day and start to matter a whole lot to you the next. The kind of surprises He has in store don't just change things for the moment. They have a far greater purpose than that. They alter our futures and who we become on the way to getting to our futures. They shake us from our here-and-now comforts and beg us to move beyond ourselves, our misplaced sense of security, comfort, and happiness, and look on to the One Who changes not. As Hebrews states, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He Himself does not change, but you can rest assured that He's the One Who's precisely orchestrating all of the change(s) in your life.
Bottom line is this:
Life doesn't always go "according to planned."
Change, big and small, surrounds us daily.
Every change, despite our ability or will to accept it, brings opportunity.
Opportunity to hang on to your best-laid plans, despite what you're sacrificing in the long run to do so.
Or opportunity to set your plans aside and be surprised by a God Who knows your plans - yet loves you too much to let you simply settle for them.
And, when you look at it that way, there's no further debate in my mind.
I'll walk through the doors God opens in my life, accept the changes in my life as personalized tokens of His love for me, and gladly watch as my best-laid plans fly out the window.
