Our culture is plan focused. We tend to map out our future, creating calendars for each day, one and five-year plans for all the aspects of life, and even itineraries for vacations.
My days begin as planned. This cold, February morning I built a fire in the woodstove while our Cuisinart coffeemaker ground the beans and perked the coffee. My cup of choice was large, and bowl-shaped, enough to complete one day of homework for the seven-week Bible study I am working on, which is focused on various types of prayer. This week we learn to pray for unity in the church. Then I read the section of the book of Mark and a Psalm that is on my read through the New Testament and Psalms plan for this year. Is this my rhythm or my regimen?
God has slowly been teaching me to write plans in pencil rather than ink. To not be so attached to what I view as my best and trust in Him, the God who intensely, intelligently, wills the best for me. A God who sees me, who knows all things, and has thoughts that are higher than mine.
Several months ago, as I stood in line to pay for purchases at a Christian bookstore, I dropped a tumbled marble square by Twelve Stone Art with these words imprinted: “My Future is in Your Hands.” (Psalm 16:5) I was going to give it to a sister in Christ in need of encouragement but had to gather the pieces and pay for the shattered square. Later I glued it together. It now sits in the window of my study, the cracks clearly visible.
That moment in the bookstore, as the stone artwork broke, the Holy Spirit revealed that I was deceived to think I was trusting God with my future. More accurately I was trusting God to complete the plans I made.
I do want to accomplish certain things in life… my dream of writing a book is not dead. Perhaps this desire to have certain dreams come true was the reason the crash between the Black Hawk helicopter and the commercial airliner in January triggered a state of depression. All those dreams, such as skating in the winter Olympics, ending up at the bottom of the Potomac River.
But again, God spoke. “You have this moment in time,” he said. Tomorrow, next week, or next year is not guaranteed.
We do not know the number of our days. But we have this moment. What might we do with it? I am writing this blog.
We shape our future moment by moment knowing God has our best in mind, ultimately, we will be honed into the image of Jesus Christ. I may not write the book but during my writing time I will pursue the dream at appropriate moments in time.
It’s not so much what we are doing but how we are doing it. Each moment is a choice. Will we walk with God or go our own way?
©2025 Susan Cort Johnson *All Rights Reserved
Photo from Pixabay.