Not our plans

I have a list of ideas for articles that I want to write up for All4God. (Tip – keep a note of ideas you get as you get them so that you will remember them when you have time to do something about them. I have lost many potential devotions because I didn’t jot down the inspiration God gave me at the time. Sorry!) I was trying to decide which of them I wanted to write up today, but wasn’t really feeling any of them. Which was when it struck me.
I wanted to write on my schedule. I wanted to chose what I wrote about. I wanted to be in control and have a plan and have things nicely scheduled out in advance. But what matters isn’t what I want, but what God wants. What was important wasn’t what I wanted to write about, but what God wanted me to share. And sometimes we can be guilty of coming to God with our lists and plans and essentially say “Here I am and here’s what I’m doing, your help would be appreciated, thanks.” We make up our mind before consulting God. Which isn’t what he wants.
We follow a Saviour who says “Come, follow me” (Mark 1:17). We follow a God who has great plans for us; plans for good, to give us a future and a hope beyond our imagination (see Jeremiah 29:11). And maybe we are missing out on that because instead of coming to God empty handed and willing to follow we come with our own plans and an idea of where we want to go.
So perhaps what we need to do is to let go. To surrender over our dreams, hopes and plans and instead say to God “What do you want? How do you want me to follow you? What are your plans for me?” Because it is all very well for us to make our plans, but (and this is just a hunch, feel free to correct me if I am wrong) I have a feeling that God’s plans will be somewhat better. Probably massively better. And I know I’d rather live out His intention for my life than struggle to make my own ideas work.
There is nothing wrong with having plans for what you want to do with your life. But the important thing to do is to make sure you don’t cling so tightly to your own plan that you can’t drop them if they don’t match up with God’s plans. Because Jesus said “Come, follow me,” so let’s stop trying to drag Him around to our plans and start trying to actually follow Him, letting Him lead us where he wants us to go, so that His plans and our plans become one and the same.