What's Your Plan?

Back when my hair was thick and my eyes were keen, I planned to become a hospital administrator by enlisting into the Air Force in the medical admin field, take classes offered by the Air Force and colleges near the base, get accept into Officer's Training School (OTS), serve in the AF Medical Corp until I retired at 38 and then go to work as a Hospital Administrator in whatever institution fortunate enough to secure my services.

Yeah, that is exactly what happened - not!  I got into the Air Force, into the medical corps, into business classes with an emphasis on medical administration, and then I got out of the Air Force, into a preacher training course, in to full-time ministry and continued going to college, university and seminary until I received a Doctor of Ministry in Homiletics (Art of Preaching), which I no longer am but rather a chaplain who after completing all the require CPE's (Clinical Pastoral Education) at Baptist Medical is now moving into the realm of veteran benefit agent with Arkansas Hospice with whom I have been employed my entire chaplain career.

Here's what I've seen clearly in my life and what my patients tell me daily, "Life doesn't turn out the way you thought it would."  It really doesn't.  If yours is all mapped out, I'm afraid you will find that your plan A will give way to a plan B or C or D...  Life isn't about a successfully completed plan A but rather successfully navigating a series of plan B's, which were not what you had in mind at all.

Why?  Why is it that hardly anyone has a plan that they can follow all the way to it's conclusion in life?  Because most don't have God's will in mind but rather their desires.  And, it is God, no man, who is in control of time and circumstance: "Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails" (Prov 19:21).

I had my plans but God has His Plan and it will be worked out in the lives of his servants.  If we choose not to be disciples of the Lord, he will still work our his plan but simply without you or over your protests.  I am not doing what I had planned or living where I had planned but I know that God is leading my life and I want his will to prevail in my life.

I am striving to give up my type A personality with my plan A determination.  I am happy to give up my planning to God's plan.  So, today I plan to listen to my Lord and follow His leading.  What I do or where I go is not important but rather that God is directing my life.  I plan to follow Jesus - daily.  What's your plan?  Jus' Ask'n.