What Are Your Plans For This Year?
A note from the Mrs.
“What are your plans for this year?”
We were out for coffee and the question circulated our table. One friend is returning to the mission field and her year is full of uncertainty–of chapters closing and new ones opening. Another friend is contemplating big life decisions for her family. Her plans may be big and dramatic.
The question never made it around to me but I thought about it. I don’t have any. My life will probably look a lot like it did last year and even the year before. I will be a wife and a mother and continue my employment outside the home. I will do laundry, and dishes, serve in the church, and walk my dog. I will consider the same view from my windows and repeat the same cycles of life I have become accustomed to. I have no plans.
And yet God…
I’m sure God has something planned for me and perhaps that’s why the monotonous description of my day-to-day does not chafe. Surely, God has something for this year.
But how to find it?
The answer comes simply. Faithfulness in the day-to-day. To approach each day as an answer to God’s call to live for him. This could be a dreadful feeling of seeing an unchanging life laid out before you or perhaps there could also be an open-handedness to it. What things am I doing today that are kingdom-building? How am I living and making choices that glorify God?
I sometimes get caught up in considering myself as a main character. That adventure or some dramatic moment is being built towards. And while I’m open to it, I now consider other possibilities with equal attachment. Perhaps I am the great-great-grandmother of someone who does something great for God. Perhaps my everyday faithfulness spurns someone else into faith. It could be the money we sent to missions or the church through working hard at our jobs actually advanced the kingdom. Or maybe this soup I made today and served to friends did something to glorify God.
I have had a few moments when I know that God has used me directly but those moments have been few and fleeting.
And so I remember that the tapestry that God is weaving can only be understood when we are finally able to step back and see what he has made. Up close, the threads show no pattern or picture, but from afar, we will see how he has made something amazing through time. My seemingly insignificant life will be but one thread in this beautiful masterpiece but I am thankful to be woven into this story.
And so with that in mind here are my plans for this year.
Wife (this is an action word)
Mother (again, not just a title)
Pray more and pray better
Give each day to God and be open-handed with my time
Take my sanctification seriously and consider what that looks like
Thoughtfully follow the opportunities and giftings God has given me
Make more soup and feed others with it