I like to plan. I want to be helpful and think ahead to problems that could arise and have a solution for them beforehand. I find that on the whole, planning brings peace to my heart. Having three kids in four years pushed me into a need for more organization. I wouldn’t particularly call myself type A before kids, but a strong A- has emerged over the course of my twelve years of motherhood.

Becoming a planner was a slow and painful process. Now that I have the color-coded whiteboard and the meal-planning journal, I find that these very tools have caused a bit of entitlement to spring up. I didn’t realize my own slippery slope until it was a full-blown problem. I began to adopt the mantra, “If I plan, I will be guaranteed a good outcome.”

I swear I can hear you laughing sweet reader. And as I type it I smirk at myself, too. Saying it out loud sounds ridiculous, but a big piece of me believed this. The proof existed when my “best-laid plans” went askew, I didn’t handle it well. I still don’t at times (if I’m being honest). My knee-jerk reaction is to meltdown. I want to spew the dozens of things I did to prevent this very thing from happening, and how I don’t deserve this outcome!

Now, I am aware of this weakness. I work to keep my mouth shut when I first realize things are heading in a different direction than my plan. I check in with the Holy Spirit who is my ever-present help in time of need (even if that need is a holy hand over my mouth). I work to free the current events from my clutched hands and I give it back to God (where it belongs). I take a deep breath and acknowledge my frustration and disappointment, but I don’t stay there. I lean in and depend on the Holy Spirit to guide me in the new plan. Although it feels like plan B to me, it was more likely the better plan that God had all along.

My life’s story is a great example of that. I started my adult years (age 18, let’s pretend that is adult years, mkay?) married to my high school sweetheart and had a plan of growing up together, raising kids in our young adulthood and having many years after that to be with each other. By 20, I was looking at a life of uncertainty and starting over with a broken heart. If I had held too tightly to what I had planned, I would have missed the opportunity to start over with a man that I have no doubt was a gift from God. We married by the time I was 22 and although we planned to wait a little while before having children, God’s plan prevailed, and we welcomed three children into our family before our fifth anniversary.

I would not have picked the path my life took, but in hindsight, I am beyond grateful for all of it. The good, the horrible, the inconvenient: they have all taught me to trust His ways above my own. I call it plan B, and in my mind, I have stopped thinking of that as a secondary plan. I have decided the B stands for better. Isn’t that more of the truth? His ways are better than ours and I for one could not be happier that I serve a God that knows exactly what He is doing and nothing my inferior human power chooses can screw up His plans. He is so creative and powerful that I alone cannot mess up the will of God. If my heart is for Him and desiring His ways for my life, my missteps can not destroy His purposes. They may delay it, but in our repentance and return to His will above our own, His plan prevails. And isn’t that the best news our fallible hearts could soak in today? I leave you with a few key scriptures for those feeling the sting of seeing their “best-laid plans” go awry.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight.

Ephesians 3:30 (NIV)

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more that all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NIV)

“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. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Isaiah 43:19 (NIV)

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

Saying Yes to God's Plan B