When Plans Change

One of the earliest questions kids get asked as they are growing is: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” From the time we are old enough to form sentences till around 10 or 11, that answer usually is “a firefighter”, or “a police officer”, or “a soldier.” From pre-school till I was about 10 years old, the answer for me was always “a pizza man”. I loved pizza. It was my favorite food. I used to beg for pizza almost every night. Naturally, I wanted to be a pizza man. I wanted to throw the dough the old fashioned way. I wanted to make kids smile when I made their favorite pizza.

That, of course, changed as I got older (if you are reading this and you are still inspiring to be a pizza man, please do not feel offended). My dad introduced me to computers at a young age and since then I’ve been fascinated with them. I learned my way around them quickly, and decided that I wanted to fix computers. This pleased my parents, since I can make good money doing that, and it was something I loved to do.

I started college and began pursuing a degree in Information Systems, which would help me achieve my ultimate goal. I’m currently near the end of that degree program. I’m on the edge of jumping head first into the career that I’ve wanted since I was 11. One might say that I have my future already determined and planned.

But I’d like to hit the brakes on this for awhile. I think I was planning all of this without input from God.

I picked up My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers and started reading through it. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about the book and she told me to check out a couple of devotionals from earlier this month, so I did. These particular devotionals talked about the danger of planning without God in the picture.

These passages really gripped at me. You know, my whole life, I’ve known, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what I’ve wanted to do with my future, but I went through some serious life-changing experiences in the past few months, and these caused me to rethink everything that I planned.

It made me realize that all of my planning didn’t really take into account what God might want me to do. Oswald wrote in those devotionals that when we plan without God in the picture, He often brings us into experiences that cause us to rethink our plans, and I’m convinced that this is what happened to me.

Where I was so sure before, doubt now lingers above my head like a cloud.

Where is my future going? Right now, I have no idea, but I have every intention of including God in those plans.

Pray for me. Pray that I can allow God to be the chief motivator of my decisions and that I’ll do what’s best for Him, which is ultimately what’s best for me.