I have no plans

What's next? How long will you stay at Starbucks? Will you look for a teaching job in August? Will you look for any other jobs? If you had to pick another job besides teaching what would you do?

These are questions that most people ask me. And ones that I can't answer. I don't know. I have no plan, I have no "end" to this job set in mind, I have no backup plans or alternate plans. As a culture focused on advancing and moving forward, I know this pressue of having a plan. We want to advance in our jobs to get higher positions and more money. We want to advance in our education and get higher degrees and more specialized degrees, again to make more money but also for job security and the ability to find jobs easier. We want to advance in our hobbies - if we've done mission trips withing the US, why don't we go abroad? If we've learned how to play an instrument, why don't we take lessons and play for money and join a famous band or make a CD? If we enjoy reading, why don't we start a book club or expand our type of books we read or perhaps write our own book?

Because sometimes you can't advance. Sometimes it's ok to enjoy something at the level you're at. Sometimes you don't have the money or time to go further in every aspect in life. Sometimes you don't want to be reckless and get a masters degree just because you have time to fill and loans to pay back, but no job. Sometimes you come across jobs or opportunities that are through networking or by chance, not through you pursuing them. And sometimes I think we are so focused on our plans and what's next that we miss out on GOD's plans and the present.

"Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil." - James 4: 13-16

I love this verse because it speaks so boldly and clearly. We often think our plans are so grand, so solid, so bulletproof. Or we at least think that we should MAKE plans, because it seems silly not to have them. Even in our plans we still need to say, "If it's the Lord's will." Now I totally think that we are called to move forward in life as far as looking for opportunities to serve others and the Lord, and not to just become lazy or stagnant for the purpose of being in our comfort zones at all time or because we claim that we're waiting for the Lord to do something year after year. As we pray and listen, we may still have to make the effort to LOOK and search for another job or a spouse or a different path in life because God doesn't simply place everything in our lap.

One very dissapointing thing is having your grand and solid plans fall apart. I wanted to teach from the time I was 9. And then as I went through student teaching and then graduated, I questioned ever teaching at all. As I looked for a job teaching, I did not find one. My desire to teach was mostly gone anyways. But maybe my degree will be used for kids still, and maybe even teaching, but in a different setting. Maybe a Christian school, maybe a children's organization, maybe a church. However, maybe I will teach in a public school some day and love it. I really don't know.

Honestly, I know that my entire life will be making plans, watching plans fail, re-routing my plans, and repeating the whole thing. Even if it's a vague plan, there's something in our heads that at least hopes for a particular outcome to happen. I hope to be married soon. I hope to have kids. I hope to go on mission trips all over the world throughout my whole life. I hope to retire and live in an awesome retirement community. I hope my husband and I stay married until we die, and that we die around the same time so that neither of us are left sad. But time and time again I hear people's life stories about how different their life turned out. How they only planned on having one or two kids but then had 4. How they planned on working, but then became a stay at home mother. How they planned on retiring early, but then after they retired they had to go back to work for financial reasons. How they planned on marrying someone, but then breaking up with them just before getting engaged or married.

My GPS often says, "re-routing" when I turn on the wrong road or feel like there's a faster way than my GPS is telling me. But in the end I get to my destination. I know that in the end I will go to heaven and along the way I want to bring everybody with me. So no matter what happens in my life, no matter what roads life puts me on, I know that God can use me even if they're roads I didn't intend on traveling on. Sometimes I will be put on dark roads with frustrating people, not by my choice, so that I can be the only light in that darkness. So that I can plant a seed or sew or harvest in hearts that need to hear about Jesus. It's easy to stay on the safe roads with my Christian friends and basically hang out with Jesus and be happy about it. But that's not really the point. I'll have eternity to do that.

So. This road I'm on now looks like one of those highways where you can see to the horizon with just one road. Where you want to speed to get through this long stretch of road to get to a more interesting scenery or cool pitstop, but it's just an endless stretch of road. For now, I'm ok with that. So while every part of me wants to plan plan plan, I know that I'm not really able to that right now. I will just immerse myself in what God has placed me in and ask to be used where I am.