Through the years, like you, I have been subjected to a lot of teaching from experts who have challenged me to plan out my life goals—to establish my 5-year and 10-year and 20-year plans. I have really tried to do this at times, but as I look back I realize how ineffective these exercises have been—at least for me. For a long time I lived with the sense of hyper-responsibility (even before God) that I had to discern my future and make wise plans for it. I also lived with a sense of frustration that I didn't have a comprehensive plan for my life and this actually hindered me at times from stepping out boldly to engage life "in the moment".
Looking back again, I realize that there was no way to plan for the multitude of unexpected twists and turns that God and this life have thrown my way. This is especially true as I think about my ministry path. So many matters that have deeply affected my "career" as a minister (I really never refer to ministry as a career—I believe that it's a vocation from God.) have been determined by events (good and bad), relationship dynamics, unanticipated divine guidance, other's choices (good and bad!) and the like that were far beyond my control to plan specific outcomes.
Ah yes…"control". Maybe our cultural and human biases toward grasping for a wrong "control" of life (often in the guise of our being responsible and wise) has skewed our popular teachings on planning our futures. (Side note: I actually wonder how many people gravitate to "prophetic" ministry because they subconsciously are thinking that if they know the future, then they can control the process of getting there? My experience with the genuine revelatory ministry of the Holy Spirit is anything but the negation of the need for trusting God with unknown elements of the future. It typically only intensifies the need to "walk by faith and not by sight"!)
More to come....
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