The Not-Quite-Closed Door
I closed the door of my Study when I got in to the church this morning. I do this very rarely, but I thought that today, it made sense. I had a big stack of things to try to accomplish, thanks to a meeting last night that was both a great success and pointed to just how much work we have yet to do for our Out of the Cold Program, and the fact that tomorrow I'm taking a load of items to Evangel Hall and won't be in the church after about 1:00 at all! Need to get that sermon done, right?
And God... had other plans for my day!
Ten minutes after I sat down, one of the "ghosts" of downtown comes in. She's talking to me for the first time in three years, and her "I only need a minute" was more like thirty. A nice chat, headed all over map... and to some places that are not mapped, merely pointed at silently, and away she went.
Secretary comes knocking with some family news.
Treasurer comes in with some community news.
Kathy calls me to remind me of the coming course of her day.
A family member calls with some bad news - not the worst, but not good.
The Treasurer comes back with a question; in the middle of getting the answer, he notes that one of my other chronic visitors has come in the door and tells the fellow that he'll just be a second, but in the moment that the visitor steps out to wait, someone from the neighbourhood comes in and up the stairs as the Treasurer is leaving, plops down and we talk for twenty minutes; as she leaves, she calls to the other visitor that I'm freed up now, so he comes in and we chat for a bit; while he was in my Study, another woman came in looking for a Bible study that we are not currently running, and after the visitor left, I had thirty minutes in which to get something done to be prepared for *tomorrow* so that I could head out for a pastoral call!
*sigh*
I had a plan for my day.
God, as I said, had different plans!
There's no point in being frustrated; what gets done will be what needs to get done, in His eyes, if not my own. Some things will get pushed to the side for a time, so that I can do what needs to be done on God's list of priorities. By closing my door, in retrospect, I was almost directly telling God my plans, which obviously made him chuckle!
Surrendering to the will of God is all we can do. When we fight for our own way, we might even get it sometimes... but it won't be what we think it is. But when we surrender to the will of God, we find we get what we actually need, as opposed to what we think we want.
So, what's next...?