97Plan Timeyears earlier. We had just worked ridiculously hard to pay off
our college loans. (Oh, the stories I could tell.) As a reward to
ourselves, we decided to take a trip to Europe.
I realize that might sound incredibly extravagant for a couple
that not two years before was tens of thousands of dollars in col-
lege debt. But Jimmy had a lot of family in Europe: his dad was
stationed in France, his aunt was a US Army officer stationed in
Germany, and he had extended family throughout France. We
needed only to pay for our plane tickets (which were very cheap
at the time) and take a little spending money. To maximize our
budget, we planned every detail of the trip. We had an itiner-
ary and researched every plane ticket and train ticket, and we
were even able to squeeze in a short stay in Paris at a bed- and-
breakfast before our return flight home. Our planning squeezed
incredible memories out of that journey on a newlywed budget.
It was a wonderful trip. We met so many of Jimmy’s
French family members, saw and read about fascinating his-
torical locations, and enjoyed every minute of the thoroughly
thought- out, extremely planned trip.
There are seasons to plan and seasons to be spontane-
ous, but a good plan can take us places we never dreamed we
could go.
Shift Your Plan- Time Perspective
As Christians, many of us struggle with planning because we
see it as something separate from God. How can we plan our
day if we are putting our faith in Him? How can we set goals
and have schedules if we are following where God leads us?