October 05, 2006
Tomorrow
Each fall I purchase a large desk calendar for the coming year, but rather than putting it on a desk, I hang it on the backside of my pantry door. This calendar is my life organized on paper and anything not on the calendar, doesn’t get done. Before hanging it up at the beginning of the New Year, I pencil in birthdays, paydays and vacation plans. The year is relatively ‘clean’ of activities, however looking toward the next 12 months I can’t help but wonder what the Lord has written on my calendar that I can’t see. Have my vacation plans been altered to accommodate a crisis? Which days are blocked out for discouragement or grief? What surprises or moments of joy are waiting to take place?
I know, I know…Jesus says, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matt 6:34 NIV) I’m really not worried about tomorrow, nor am I looking for trouble. I just want to be ready for it…whatever ‘it’ is.
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Gail;
----I am writing this comment while watching The Final Report on the LA Riots. Now there was an event that cleared a four day swath out of many calendar. I am a news/information junky. When that kind of event occurs the news channels of my life get allocated a greater share of my attention. And to scramble my calendar even more, on April 30, 2002 near to lunchtime on the second day of the LA Riots, Rachel and Erin, my twin daughters were born (for years I called them my riot babies). The OJ Simpson case, the burning out of the Branch Davidians, the Oklahoma City Bombing, and the Clinton impeachment hearings each cleared at least a day off my calendar. 9-11 took out a whole week.
----In fact, my philosophy has always resisted putting anything on my calendar. I reluctantly do it for my clients because, well, a professional has to. I grew up perceiving life to be one giant parade of helter skelter, and that is what I reserved my calendar for.
----I stand in awe at the organization of mind involved in mapping out a whole year for those events that are in the greatest probability of happening. I think the Lord stands in honor of it as well. Proverbs says in several places that plans belong to man, and his actual steps belong to God. There is no condemnation of planning in those statements. I think that they actually support the need for the kind of planning you do, while setting out into the foreground the reality that the Lord reserves the right to take you elsewhere.
----As I continue to struggle to gain more and more self-control, I am going to do much pondering on the desk calendar hanging inside your pantry door. It says to me that you have places to go and things to do. Yet, my blank calendar says to me, "OK Lord, whatever, whenever, wherever, lets just do something then get oputta here."
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