The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him. Lamentations 3:25 (ESV)
We were standing in the kitchen. I was explaining the weekend schedule to my two teenage children and my son said “We always have something planned. Can’t we ever be spontaneous?” I said “Sure!” I walked over to the calendar hanging on the wall and as I was pointing at it I said “We can be spontaneous on this weekend.” My son looked at me and said “Obviously, you don’t know what the word spontaneous means. You don’t schedule it.”
This is a true story. We look back now and laugh but in truth, this is who I am. I like to plan. I like to know what is happening, when it’s happening and if I can know how it will happen, I am even happier.
Lately, God has been teaching me that my plans mean nothing and his “spontaneity” in my life is the actual plan. What do I mean by this? As a Jesus Girl I have come to learn there is a lot of waiting involved. I can plan all I want to but the majority of my time is now spent waiting on Him. There doesn’t seem to be a defined schedule, a plan of action or any sort of rhyme or reason to when something happens. As you can imagine, this is a little frustrating for me.
I have thoughts like ‘Can we please just do something?’ or ‘Can we please move this along a little faster?’ And then like a child I repeat “What are we doing?” Kind of like “Are we there yet?” Except it probably sounds more like “Can we get there already?” I thank God for His patience with me.
I was sharing these thoughts with my son the other day and I said “There is no plan.” He said “Oh there is a plan. You just don’t know what it is. It’s kind of like when you were a child. You follow along with what your parents are doing not knowing the plan and all of a sudden you end up at the beach.”
Not only did this make me smile but I realized he’s right. When we follow along and go with God’s plan, even when we have no idea where we are going, suddenly we catch a glimpse of Him. Suddenly, we get to see His hand at work and we are exceedingly blessed. I don’t have the waiting thing down yet. I’m not sure I ever will but I am getting better at knowing. I am getting better at knowing if I wait and keep looking, all of a sudden I will get to experience Jesus. It is always worth the wait. Always.