Everybody, Always

landed the plane without a nose gear, it wouldn’t end well. If I stayed in
the air, I’d run out of fuel and it’d probably end worse. If I didn’t get to a
bathroom soon, well, we all know how that would end.
We’ve all had circumstances like this in our lives. We bank on one
thing happening and it doesn’t. A job. A date. A bonus. An answer. A
verdict. We’re all waiting for more information, more confirmation,
more certainty at some point. Sometimes anything more will do. We want
clarity and instead we get confusion. We want answers and we just get
more questions. We make terrific plans and then something unexpected
comes up and they end up in a pile on the floor like dirty laundry. Perhaps
we were hoping a door would open or another would close. We’re hoping
something we desperately need to end would be over, or something else
we want to start would begin. All the signs pointed in one direction, then
in an instant, something went wrong. The flight plan we laid out for
ourselves took us high over the mountaintops, but the one we actually got
flung us deep into the valleys.
In short, most of us want more green lights than we have. It’s easy to
forget that our faith, life, and experiences are all the green lights we need.
What we need to do is to stop circling the field and get the plane on the
ground. God doesn’t allow these kinds of things to happen to mess with
our heads; He uses these circumstances to shape our hearts. He knows
difficulties and hardship and ambiguity are what cause us to grow
because we are reminded of our absolute dependence upon Him.
God’s plans aren’t ruined just because our plans need to change. What
if we found out God’s big plan for our lives is that we wouldn’t spend so
much of our time trying to figure out a big plan for our lives? Perhaps He
just wants us to love Him and love each other. Our ability to change is
often blocked by our plans. Some people look for shooting stars or
ladybugs landing on their noses as answers from God. Sure, He could
communicate to us this way. But honestly, while these kinds of things
have happened to me, they’ve never really felt like answers; they just felt
like reminders.