Many plans are in a man’s heart,
but the counsel of the LORD will stand.

Proverbs 19:21

I am a planner and I am easily distracted! OCD and ADHD (not officially diagnosed, but way to obvious!) always in a tug-of-war inside of me. It used to drive me and others crazy! Now I just roll with it and laugh at myself. For others, they just keep trying to figure me out! Good luck with that!

The planner in me maps out today, tomorrow, next week, next month and the rest of my life! The distracted me finds all kinds of other stuff to do, to read, to listen to, to nap on, etc…etc…! So, then the planner has to map new plans for today, tomorrow, etc… and then more ‘other stuff’ creeps in…and on and on! Somehow, and it often seems miraculous, I have reached age 65 and am fairly intact! All praise to God for that! 

Interestingly, if I try to squelch the distracted side of me, my planning side gets ugly, I mean ugly. I am so rigid in the plan, so unwavering in my (emphasis on ‘my) expectations that my thoughts and behavior are tyrannical rather than Christ-like. Conversely, if I try to subdue the planning side of me, I am a little easier to live with, but nothing of substance gets done and not one project is completed in a timely fashion or even finished at all! So, I quit squelching and subduing in my own efforts and submitted to God and His Holy Spirit instead! This is something I have to do daily and sometimes minute by minute if life spirals, as it has a habit of doing. I have not arrived in this submission principle at all! It truly is continuing sanctification. 

I am at peace, though, with who I am in Christ and no longer look at this dichotomy that sometimes rages inside of me as a curse. But, rather I see it as God’s unique way of creating me to accomplish the tasks He has given me and live the life He has so graciously bestowed for me! I still plan, but with a wide-open hand and heart so that God can change, reroute or discard any plan that I have devised. The goal is to keep the ‘my’ in the planning thoroughly sanctified in Jesus so He increases, and I decrease (Read John 3:30). And I still go down multiple rabbit holes, but these rabbit holes are much more Holy Spirit-driven; they aren’t just mere distractions of my own imagination. They are opportunities to wait for God to do His counsel (See today’s key verse) and watch Him take that rabbit hole and use me to serve another and meet a need for His glory and not my own. 

In all this, God has placed me in the beautiful background of His counsel, the background of His doings and His moving in the lives of others. Before, I believed the American lie that if I really wanted to be somebody, to reach the height of all I could accomplish then I had to be out front. I had to be the one everyone looked up to and the one who received all the human accolades. Now, I simply believe Jesus and allow Him to place me anywhere in His tapestry that He chooses. After all, the background of a beautiful portrait or tapestry is what gives the foreground its substance and depth. I love being a part of that depth and the peace that fills me beyond even my own imagining!

Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them: for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give alms, sound not trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men.
Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

Matthew 6:1-2