vapors

I’m sure that I ought to know better. I’ve told others this before. I’ve taught about it. It’s gone through my ears but not stuck in my head. I’m talking about planning. I should have known not to begin planning out how my life was going to go so far in advance. Actually it was going, sort of, according to plan just the other day. Then came Monday, just like all of the other proverbial Monday’s that we deal with and Monday did its Monday thing and decimated all of my plans. Actually I shouldn’t sound so selfish, because it took a lot of lives with it. Within the scope of just hardly any time at all, the plans that I had laid out before God for His blessing were totally altered. Personal, professional, physical, financial, social, you name it. It was all altered. I guess that I should know better knowing who it is that really controls my life and destiny. Why am I shocked when I lay my plans before someone who wonders “why do you say today or tomorrow we will go here or there when your life is nothing but a vapor, a mist that’s here today and gone tomorrow”. I lay my plans before Him and usually walk away expecting them to be blessed, but not really waiting to see if they will be or not. He knows what is ahead, He’s already been there, and He’s probably even trying to get my attention as I walk away confident in my own ability to live my life or life on behalf of others. “Uh, excuse me…..” I can imagine Him saying as I wander away.
I know this, the futility of planning I mean. I know that I should pull back a bit more and plan a bit less and enjoy the ride. But sometimes the ride is a bit like Space Mountain and I’d just like to see what’s around the next sharp jerk of the car. Anyway, plans change and here I am trying to refigure. It’s like those annoying Magellan GPS car navigational devices. You plug in an address and you follow this sultry techno-voice and at some point you miss a turn and she seductively exclaims “recalculating”. Which means, “Can’t you even follow direction?”. I wonder if the people who named this device realize that Magellan died on his journey. Anyway, it’s a humbling experience all the way around. I like to think that I’m in control and I’m not. I like to provide security where there is none. It’s only a mist and I’m only a vapor and it’s all very challenging to scheduled people like me.
I’m not as good as I should be with that vapor thing. I ought to be. I live in the land of marine layer where the morning mist dissipates by early afternoon and things are totally different than they began. The thing is, the altering of my plan is usually a better plan after all. It doesn’t seem so at the time, but I think that this is only because of the trauma of realizing that life is not mine in the moment. It causes fear. When the fear passes though and the reality unveils itself, peace sets in. And that’s really all I ever wanted in the first place.