So often we get caught up in our never-ending lists of to-dos. We have each day mapped out to the hour of what we’re going to get done and when we’re going to do it. Frequently we scramble to squeeze in more activities and responsibilities where there really isn’t time. We get consumed in what we need to accomplish and we forget why we need to accomplish it. But why do we do this?

Why do we cram our lives full of future tasks and then fall apart when they don’t go as planned? You’ve been there. You’ve spent endless hours planning and making sure that everything would go just right. You were so excited and ready to jump into it, and then it went completely wrong. It didn’t turn out even close to what you planned. And then you ask yourself how it went wrong when you did everything right. It may have seemed like you did everything right, but you probably left out one crucial step. Did you remember to ask God if any of it was His plan?

Planners are life-savers for those of us who thirst for organization. They allow us to keep all of our responsibilities, meetings, due dates, etc laid out in front of us. There is nothing harmful about a planner…as long as you are using it as a suggestion and not the law of your life. It doesn’t matter what you write down for Thursday at 9:45, God already has Thursday at 9:45 planned out, and His planner may not match up to yours.

Our job is to accept the differences between His planner and ours. We have to see that He is God and we are not. We have to stop asking Him “why” He changes our plans or throws us a setback and start asking “how” He is going to use it. We can put all of our time and energy into planning the next few steps of our lives, but if we don’t consult with God first, all of that time is wasted. He has a plan for you, a plan that was drawn up before you even took your first breath, so why do we hesitate to trust Him. He already knows what is going to happen. He already knows that we are going to come crying to Him when things don’t go the way we planned them. We could save ourselves a lot of tears if we would just check in with Him first and make sure that our will matches up with His will.

Ask Him to show you that you are on the right track. But don’t ignore the signs that He gives you if they don’t coincide with your desires. Even though we like to think that we know what is best for us, most of the time we don’t, but God always will. He already knows what your major is going to be, where you’re going to do your internships and what your career is going to be. So why do we try to do all of the planning ourselves? Why do we fill our calendars with future engagements when we don’t even know what tomorrow is going to bring? By being consumed in what is going to happen next, we miss out on everything that God is giving us right now. We have to learn to rest in His presence and trust that He will guide us, and He will never lead us in the wrong direction, only we can do that. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Ask for His will to be done and you will be given hope and a promising future.