The No Plan Plan…

Sometimes no plan is the best plan. This past weekend my sister Carol came over to help me clean out the garage, now before you all start thinking what a great sister to help clean out a garage, it was partly her mess too. She was one of the other owners of the now closed Catholic Gift shop, and all the stuff from the store was still in my garage. So we packed it up and delivered it to the thrift shop (St. Vincent DePaul’s).  That was the planned part, now the rest of our day was the best part, and it was unplanned.

 

We decided to go out for lunch, and then off to k-mart, so maybe be gone for 1 hour, then back to my house to do a few other odds and ends. As it turned out we left for lunch around 1:00 and returned home from k-mart around 10:00 pm… No, we did not stay at k-marts all the time, we ended up going all over the place, just talking and shopping, out for dinner and more shopping… It was just a great day, nothing really to do, no kids around us and no real rush.

 

We both stated how fun it was, and truly how refreshing. It was a perfect day, and it was not planned. No schedule, no time table, no phone calls (that really shocked us, her kids always call). It was just a brother and sister out for the day.

 

I think the same thing is true for God; sometimes the best things happen when there is no plan. We all too often get caught up in this “scheduled world” thing. Everything has to have a date, time and plan to happen. I see it in my sisters girls, they have to have it all planned out, know who is going, what’s going to happen, and how. And may God protect anyone who changes the plans or just totally disregards them.

 

Yes God has a plan for us, but I refuse to see God with his day planner saying; “Hmmm, looks like to day at 3:30 pm Paul will get his prayer answered why he is driving home.” That just does not seem like an all knowing all seeing God to me, which seems more like a task master to boss. God is neither of those; rather he is a loving, understanding and non day planner caring kind of God.

 

I think that God allows for changes and deviations from the plans, in-fact I think that is more his plan then not.

 

I think God would rather do as my sister and I did, he would rather that we just spent the day together, and allow his graces to fill us as we just enjoy his company and take the day for what it is.

 

My sister and I truly did that, we took the day for what it was, just a day to spend time together and to do what we like to do, just be. We had no really deep conversations, no revelations about family or anything else. We jokes around a lot, ate breakfast, lunch and dinner together, and spent money on what ever as we walked around the different store. We just allowed the day to take us along.

 

I think God would really enjoy that, if we just allowed him to be with us, with out any needs or wants from him. Just to hang out with God, just to walk around with him, to joke and laugh, have a meal or two with him, how awesome that would be, what a refreshing time that would be.

 

So maybe we all need to put our planners down, disregard the plans and let life just happen and allow God the ability to just be with us.

 

Paul