My plans aren’t
your plans, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
Isaiah
55:8
If someone had told me a year ago that I would be where I
am now, I would have dismissed such a prediction as highly unlikely. From my
perspective, life was rich and fulfilling. There were bumps and discomforts,
but there was much love and laughter, community and familiarity. As a friend
observed, I had found my voice. But then things changed.
Walter Brueggemann categorizes Psalms into Psalms of
orientation, Psalms of disorientation, and Psalms of new orientation. I went from a strong sense of orientation to
disorientation. Through a series of events and losses, much of what seemed
stable in my life was removed. It was like living a Jenga game—block after
block was pulled out until finally the structure toppled over.
Life is like that at times for us. We experience many
seasons of disorientation. Light and darkness, feasting and fasting, life and
death, summer and winter—even nature shows us that living fully involves
seasons of change.
I’ve been part of a nine-month course on centering
prayer, and one of the key points that is often repeated is that we tend to
treat security, affection and control as needs. We think we need these to be
happy. When we look to these for happiness, we are not looking toward God, who
alone is the source of peace and joy.
Because I’ve experienced God’s faithfulness through other
seasons of disorientation, the foundation of my Jenga tower was and is God, so
that even when I felt cast into a turbulent, storm-tossed sea, I never lost my
anchor. Oh, I wondered why I was in such a place, and sometimes struggled to
hold onto the knowledge of my belovedness, but I never felt alone. And I
learned that my plans are not the last word, that God is faithful and
trustworthy, if unpredictable at times!
Trusting in God’s plans frees me to live in the present
moment. And even when that moment is turbulent, I still have an anchor holding
me fast in love.
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