ggpwn3d #2- Life Planning

My time in Spain, as well as the greater Europe, is coming to an end! I leave Valencia this Friday to Madrid, where then I will do my solo traveling to the Canary Islands to debrief on my own and then I will meet my best friend in Sicily, Italy to travel through 6 countries in 14 days! I am a planner. I love organizing these sorts of things from flights to hostels to itineraries. I love Google-ing. I love weather-checking months ahead. I love excel sheets. I love color-coding. I love checking things off.

This is just a reflection of the grander scheme of my life. I can give you an endless list of things that I have planned out in my life that will "get checked off" as time passes (i.e. color of my wedding, number of children/dogs I will have, my future house décor, events for reunions, etc.). It gets really far into my life, as well as, very detailed.

This is bad. Muy muy mal. (translation: Very very bad) Why?

Reason #1
Because I spend my time obsessing over things that in reality, might not ever happen. Who knows how many days are left of me on this earth? What if God wants me with him tomorrow? All these things that I planned for the next 50 years of life will mean what to whom? Emily, my accountability in Spain, and I share this quality. Last week, we started sharing our list of "Count Down's" in our life agenda. We saw the sin in all of this and knew that it was a form of denying God's sovereignty. It is one thing to be able to recognize this (thank God), but I had a hard time finding a way to stop.

Yes, true story. My Facebook status just a couple weeks ago was a list of count downs. 

Lo and behold, God spoke to me that night through a devotional email from Pastor Sung of Downey First Church. If you have read my previous posts, this is just another example of how assertively and quickly God has been speaking to me in my time here. You can read the email for yourself, below.

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.   - James 4:13-14

We are in a midst of a major dilemma and I wonder how many of us realize it. With our world becoming ever more sophisticated and complicated, technology is advancing exponentially to help us manage it all. But as more complicated our lives become, have you realized that time is passing proportionately? The days, the weeks, the months, the years just pass us by too quickly. Our lives are passing by way to quickly... I never imagined that I would be forty years old and I'm not... I am forty two!

The problem can be blamed due to just one reason- days pass us by so fast because we are anxiously looking forward to tomorrow. We are never content where we are in life, kids want to teenagers, teenagers want to be adults, adults are so consumed with getting head to the point that they reminisce about being a kid again just to escape being drowned in sea of responsibility.

I recently heard a weather man say that "summer is just around the corner." Well, it's not. The first day of summer is June 21- that is still fifty three days away! What's the rush? I am still trying to just take a break so that I can enjoy the spring.

Planning for the future is the culprit. Making plans a month in advance does appear to make the current month pass that much quicker doesn't it? I am looking forward to May because I like May but by looking forward to May, I didn't realize that April is already over! The days that seem to last a while are the days where we haven't plan anything. Those are the days we need more of so that we can just live in the moment. That is the lesson James is teaching- why are you planning for tomorrow, "yet you do not know what tomorrow brings. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away."  

I guess there is no way around our planning, but may we just slow down. The less complicated your life becomes you will begin to realize how much longer your days will be. Slow down, smile a little more, commit to a random act of kindness, hug your kids and kiss your spouse and savor each day before the vapor of our lives disappears. Savoring each day is how we can give thanks to the Lord for each day is a blessing from our gracious Lord.  God bless.

 g-g-p-w-n-3-d.

Reason #2
Man! Get a piece of THAT. Not only was I committing the sin of being OCD and not trusting in God, I was failing to enjoy God's presence in my life now. I might not live to see my wedding, have children of my own or ever afford a Lakers season box.

In the depths of my sinful heart, I found myself caught up in what I expected to happen, really believing that it would, in hopes that God's plan would align my needs and come in his (my) time.

And then to top this all off, I read Haggai the next day and got blasted, again.

"You expected much, but see it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?" declares the LORD Almighty. "Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house." Haggai 1:9

 Reason #3
This life that I have, I committed to Christ. While his Kingdom is yet to come and his people are still lost, I am here exerting my time/energy/love to myself and claiming my needs/wants as king of my heart. Selfish selfish selfish me. God is LORD. I am no one. This process is daily; this realization of what grace really is and being owned by the Word every time I read it.

Sighahh....There you go. I share my sins, hoping that it will be a reminder to myself because as soon as I am done writing this, I know I will forget.