Premeditated Disappointments

As my psychologist dad says...

Expectations Are Premeditated Disappointments

and...

Plan Plans Not Outcomes

I have had in my mind and heart a "way it's supposed to go/be", all my life. So far almost exactly NOTHING has every gone the way it was supposed to go, or been the way it was supposed to be.

As it turns out, I'm a lousy planner of outcomes.

I'm an idealist, who can tell you what the right principles are, but specific outcomes are only within God's hands, not man's.

Maybe I do need to die after all... die to self.

Maybe I need to die to "I want" and "I need" and "I desire" and just, simply, follow His lead.

But if I do that, if I follow His lead, that will lead me down paths I don't want to go, into situations I don't want to be in... that will take me to a prison after being beaten (Paul & Silas), it will get me thrown into a Lion's den (Daniel)... Sure, they overcame those situations, but not without cost.

Then again... isn't there a cost to NOT following his lead?

By the scale of my imaginations for what my life should have been... this life has been a GRAND DISAPPOINTMENT... I imagined I'd be a Ted Dekker by now, or leading a Pixar by now, or something other than struggling to pay bills and working a 9-5. That's where MY planning has gotten me.

So maybe the cost of following Him, and there IS a cost, isn't as high as the cost of not following Him?


There's a thought...

Darrell