There seems to be a popular idea floating around that 2020 was bad and 2021 will magically be better starting January 1st.  However, this is a simplistic and superstitious thought.  How could the clock cause a change in our lives?  Does the calendar wield power over our destinies?  Does wishful thinking help us attain better outcomes?  If superstition or wishful thinking don’t help us get to a better place, what does?  So glad you asked!

Where are you today compared to where you’d hoped to be at the end of 2020?  Most of us have hopes, plans, and goals for ourselves and the beginning of a new year stimulates us to think more about them.  Some of us revisit those goals on a regular basis and evaluate our progress, making changes to correct course and do more of what was successful.  Others of us have a vague idea of what we want and occasionally wonder if we’re any closer to getting/being what we want, but don’t actually have a plan of action.  Still others don’t bother to think ahead at all and just plod from one day to the next hoping things will turn out ok.  Which one are you?  I think our personalities cause us to lean toward one or the other, as do our life experiences.  If you experienced loss and disappointment in your formative years, you may be afraid to make plans, because you have a sneaking suspicion that things won’t turn out well no matter what you do.  Or depending on your personality, you may react in the opposite way.  You may try to control things and people in order to avoid more loss and disappointment.  

I spent years of my life not planning ahead for much of anything. You know, it’s the day before summer vacation from school for my 6 kids and I think to myself, “Huh. I guess I should make some plans for keeping the kids busy for the next 3 months.”  Or I’ve invited guests for dinner and an hour before their arrival I think, “Hmmm.  Perhaps I should start picking up the house and cooking.”  Or it’s Christmas Eve and I’m disappointed that every store for miles around has sold out of what I wanted to give the people I love. The good part is that I’m pretty flexible and don’t demand a lot from others. I can adapt quickly and accept that others aren’t necessarily like me (thank goodness!).  And the best part?  God loves me too much to leave me stumbling around chained to old, self-defeating ways of thinking.

You might not be able to identify with extreme lack of planning.  Your personality and life experiences may nudge you toward ultra planning.  You make detailed to-do lists and gleefully check items off feeling satisfaction in your accomplishments.  You constantly prepare for the next hour, next day, next week, next month, next year, next decade.  You know how much you need to save each month in order to retire comfortably.  You order seeds on New Year’s Day so you have them by Valentine’s Day, and by Mother’s Day your indoor starts are ready to transplant because you did your research on when and how to start seedlings in the best medium with a heating pad beneath and the best grow light above.  You feel fulfilled when your carefully laid plans come to fruition and you reap the benefits of your planning and hard work.  But woe to the family member who doesn’t cooperate, or who interrupts your schedule, or demands your attention in the middle of a project!

Prioritize and Plan

Our 41-year-old daughter who spent 2020 fighting advanced and aggressive cancer remarked recently that being sick forced her to choose her activities carefully.  She couldn’t do all she wanted to do, so she had to prioritize so that the most important things were the first to get her limited energy.  The rest of us can learn this important lesson, too.  I have learned to write down the three most important business tasks that need to be done each day.  But before I start those, I take care of my people. That is, I text or call the people that I have responsibility for that day.  At the beginning of the week, I write a family member’s name on the day that is best to contact them depending on their work schedules.  Some family members I rely on to contact us when it’s convenient for them since their schedules vary.  My mantra is, “People before things.”  I’m willing to drop everything to talk at a moment’s notice, but I also plan time in my days to connect.  First of all, I spend time with dear Husband as he is my first priority.  We set aside time together to talk and pray in the morning when we wake up. What are your priorities?  Do you write them down and set aside time for them?  Do you have habits that serve you well?

Pray and Persevere

I ask the Lord to help me accomplish the things that are important.  This doesn’t mean that I make plans and then ask him to rubber-stamp them.  I try to live by his kingdom’s values.  What God values is what I want to value.  Doing what he wants takes his power.  I know I need his wisdom and strength to do the right things in the right way each day.  I have seen him working on my self-sabotaging fear and the overwhelm that prevented me from planning.  He has been revealing himself as a kind, gentle, faithful companion who is worthy to be trusted with my future.  That frees me to believe that I can plan and work strategically while trusting God with the outcomes. He put good mentors in my life to teach me business planning which has greatly improved my personal planning, too.  I’m so thankful he patiently molds us into better versions of ourselves.

No matter how well we plan, we’re guaranteed some (or many!) things won’t go according to plan.  What should our response be?  I think a key concept in planning is to say, “I plan to do this, if the Lord wills.”  Acknowledging that God is sovereign is a tremendous comfort when things get messy.  I do my best, but whether things turn out as I think/hope they will is up to God.  Our Christmas plans disintegrated this year, but already we’re seeing that God had better ideas.  What a comfort to know that he is in charge!  One of our friends with a bent for comedy told me a few months ago, “Well, what with a pandemic and now wildfires, I’ve learned to depend on God.  I say, ‘If the Lord is willing’ when I make plans.  I used to say when the pandemic was all I had to worry about, ‘We’ll go to Costco, the Lord willing.’ But now with the wildfires, I say, ‘I’ll go to my mailbox and get the mail, the Lord willing.’  (The mail couldn’t be delivered during the wildfire evacuation and even afterward mail service at her house was frequently interrupted.  So she was kidding, but not kidding.)

What is your attitude when your plans go awry?  Do you get angry and grouchy?  Or do you take a deep breath and remind yourself that God is in control and choose to trust his good outcomes?