The unexpected plan

So I went and got my nails done yesterday as an effort to spend some girly time with Lydia.  There are these kind ladies who sit in our local park square and paint nails all day.  Many of my friends have gone and their nails always look great.  But each time I go I walk away with what looks like nail art courtesy of my toddler.  I try to pick easy designs.  I try to find fun ideas that seem simple.  But it never works.  Lydia picks the most complicated, paint a reindeer on each fingernail, designs and her's turn out great!  My co-worker and dear friend Jennifer went with Lydia and myself for this adventure and she got penguins and snowmen on her nails.  They look fabulous.  But as I sat and got my nails done I tried to convince myself that the nail artist had a plan.  Surely she knew what she was doing and when it was all done it wouldn't  look as terrible as it did in that moment....and then she finished and it looked no better.  Lydia's advice was to just go for it and pick the funniest thing I could think of next time. 

I got to thinking about this and I realized that I am a gal who appreciates a plan. I am not a "just go for it" type of personality.   In fact, I always assume everybody has one.  After all, doesn't everyone wake up with a running list going through their minds planning out their day before their feet hit the ground?!  It only took me 12 years into my marriage to truly understand that not everyone feels a compulsion to make a plan.  Some people are more free spirits who live moment to moment in absolute bliss.  And we need those people to calm down our crazy list making selves. 

I have been struggling lately with not having a plan.  BJ and I have felt God calling us to move further into the province and yet the only home we found as a possibility did not work out.  Now we are a people with a heart calling and yet no visible plan.  Its kinda tricky.  But in this holiday season it is very easy for me to remember that I am not alone in my desire to see the master plan of how this will go. 

Many years ago there was a little baby born into a manger and the whole world was waiting for him to arrive and yet nobody saw it coming.  They were waiting for a grande King to come in like a bull in a china cabinet.  They were waiting for something they had already imagined out in their minds.  So much so that when the real Savior showed up nobody recognized it.  It wasn't in their plan.  They didn't allow their minds to accept that maybe God's plan was something they hadn't imagined.  Maybe it was bigger. 

And this is where we arrive to the place that we must be so carful to avoid.  We must not plan our lives out so much that we don't allow breathing room for the Holy Spirit.  We must not walk around going from task to task with tunnel vision.  We need to  allow the wiggle room in our lives so that God's plan, no matter how different or distant from our plan, can take over.  It can be fairly simple at times, throwing money in the offering plate that we didn't plan on, stopping to talk to a new person we see in the neighborhood, or it can be hard.  Super duper stretching hard.    It can be living day by day waiting to see how God's plan will unfold and living peacefully during that time of the unknown. 

At Christmas time its easy to be reminded that God has a plan that is far greater than we could have ever imagined and it is good.  "For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord.  Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." This verse, Jeremiah 29:11, was a great help as I was talking to Elijah about the house in Chaguarpamba falling through.  He came up to me later, after quoting that verse to him, and told me that he was going to choose to believe that even though it was hard.  And I realized the wisdom of a 10 year old child.  Some days it is just as simple as choosing to believe what we know in our heads to be true.  God does have a plan, and a good one.  When we put our faith in the one who is worthy of it, God will bless us. 

So who are we choosing to have faith in?  If its God we are on a great road.  If its that nail lady down at the park....there may not be enough faith in the world....