plans.

We love to talk about plans, don’t we?

Whatever the particular opinion of an individual may be, there’s something about the idea of having a “plan” that captivates us. We talk about our own plans, or our lack of plans, or how much we hate plans, or how we wish we had a plan. But no matter the angle, it always comes back to plans.

I remember that, as I took the long road in obtaining a college degree, I would often be asked the one questions that would make my hair stand on end and, though not a violent person, seriously contemplate using physical measures to get my point across:

“So, what are your plans after you graduate?”

My tight-lipped smiles and forced laughter were usually my reply. I felt so much pressure to have a “winning” plan that would impress those around me and felt ashamed at offering up the truth.

I didn’t have a plan, and yet at the same time I had so many different hopes and dreams and ideas that were bursting at the seams of their existence, desperately trying to become something concrete.

I have always liked making plans, really – despite my reluctance to be asked about them. Plans have a certain hopeful quality about them. They can carry us through when we feel lost and can be a lifeline of possibilities when all we see are dead ends.

I always planned on traveling the world. I planned on sharing God’s word with the nations. I planned to live overseas and seek out adventure and a constantly changing scenery. These might have seemed like dreams, but they were my plans. They were those concrete notions everyone always wanted me to have.

And yet I’m here, doing what I’ve always wanted, what I’ve always planned for, and suddenly what I want has become more of a question than a statement. Was this really what I planned for?

I did not take these plans lightly. After the many days and weeks and months of waiting for some direction after graduation, I prayed over and over again: “Lord, help me to follow your plan and not my own. I want your perfect will and not your permissive will for my life. Make my ways align with Yours. May my plan be, above all else, to follow the one You have chosen.”

I knew that coming here was His plan – not just mine. I knew that I could have made the choice to stay and He would have allowed me to do so but that wouldn’t have been His perfect will for my life.

I write “knew,” past tense, because somehow I have begun to know that fact less and less until I find myself wondering what part of the plan I could have missed. Because this doesn’t seem like the plan He dreamed for me – or maybe it doesn’t seem like the one I dreamed for myself.

I feel completely ineffectual. I keep asking why I’m here when I don’t really seem to be doing much. Oh, there are a great many things I would like to do – a great many things that the Lord is speaking about concerning the hearts of His people here – but my involvement has been so limited that I wonder why the church here would go through the painstaking process of bringing someone in from overseas. Sometimes it seems like they don’t actually want me to lead at all, leaving me wondering to myself what, then, they wanted to hire a youth pastor for.

What is it, Lord? What is the plan? WHY am I here?

His answers have been softly spoken words affirming His calling: I called you here. Remember? I asked you to come and you obeyed. I never asked you to understand – I asked you to be here.

I read the words of Corrie Ten Boom this morning. Her quote hit me like a bullet to the chest.

“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”

~ Corrie ten Boom

It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? This idea of “trust.” Do I really, really trust Him? Do I trust Him more than I trust in my plan?

I feel like I’m riding through that tunnel, desperately groping around in the dark, trying to make sense of the scene around me as I attempt to accomplish my task. Sometimes I think about jumping off. But then, other times, I remember why I boarded this train in the first place.

It wasn’t because it was my plan. It wasn’t because it was what I wanted.

The only reason I’m on board is because of the One in the driver’s seat.

I’m learning that life isn’t so much about plans as it is about simple acts of trust, faith, and obedience. It’s about the “yes” that rolls off our tongues instead of the “no” screaming in our heads.

And it’s true that we might not understand, because maybe He didn’t ask us to. Maybe that will come in time and maybe it won’t. I think we have to be okay with either of those outcomes.

I don’t have to know where this train is headed. I just have to trust the engineer. And so I’m taking my seat, laughing off the miscommunication flying all around me, and choosing to rest here, now, in this place, with three simple words on my lips:

I trust you.