We take time to carefully plan things because we believe that our personal notion of order is what’s best for us. We plan things by the minute to make everything as organized and as predictable as possible so as to minimize the element of surprise.
You can just recall what happens when people change our plans; especially at the last minute. Surprises call for immediate adjustments, surprises call for more psychological resources, surprises call for changes and even cancellations in our original plans. It is just to stressful and taxing for our energy system. We’d rather automate things to fit our plans; believing that this is the best outcome, we wish for things to go exactly as how we want them to be.
What we fail to see is that these surprises, or ‘brief alterations’ to our plans can carry a load of benefit for us. One thing I noticed is that for The Lord to bless us, He will need to alter our original plans and improve it greatly. The theme of man’s prayer is: “Lord, bless me by fulfilling my plans exactly as I want them to be.” However, in the mind of Infinite Wisdom, The Lord’s attitude to our prayers is: “I love you and I want to bless you, therefore I have to change your plans” in other words God is saying: “your plans suck! Let me improve them for you.” I always remind my clients that when we pray to The Lord, we agree to the terms and conditions that things should go His way and unfold in His timing. Our finite minds produce inferior plans and prayers that inhibits The Infinite.
This reminds me of my daughter, who believes that a happy afternoon is all about eating ice cream at home. Her plans and expectations will be shaken with surprise and extreme changes when her mother and I decide to bless her with an adventurous afternoon in the mall (which costs us a lot more time, energy, and even money!). What’s happening here is that my daughter will experience an initial frustration of her original plans but once her internal resources can recover from the stress, she can fully enjoy a higher blessing, a better ice-cream experience at the mall which far exceeds her childhood expectations.
If my daughter insists on only having her wishes fulfilled the way she exactly planned it to be, then her parents wouldn’t be able to fully bless her because blessing her involves the alteration of her original plans. Why? Because blessing the ones we love works according to our love for them and not what she thinks is best for her (at the moment I’m speaking as a parent to a 2-year-old). And we are blessed according to His grace and goodness and NOT according to our wisdom or efforts (this flow is from The Infinite Almighty God to fallen creatures). In this way, my daughter is blessed according to the love of her parents and not according to what her little budding mind can cook up.
And my God will meet all your needs
according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:19
Thank God for this! For how can we really trust what we have in mind? The real blessings come when The Lord over-exceeds what our simple minds think as ‘good’. And this process always involve frustrating our initial plans and expectations.
The healthy attitude now is to accept all these surprises that seem to thwart and frustrate our plans and see them for what they are: these are answered prayers from The Lord.
I thank God that He goes beyond my inferior mind; my selfish plans and my worldly dreams. Let Him do what He sees fit because it will always be far superior and far wiser to what I can think of. Do not be afraid of changes to your plans, do not resent His corrections and alterations (as rattling as they may be). I welcome them all in the name of Jesus Christ.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,
and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
1 Corinthians 1:25
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