“My plan for you is not the one you have created and entertained in your mind. My plan for you is the one that is unfolding day after day in all the humiliations and apparent failure to achieve great things that make up this phase of your life.” (From In Sinu Jesu pg 116)
This ties in both with my posts earlier this week, plus something He showed me several years ago. Then, people were arguing whether “works” or “acts of obedience” could save us. My response was YES! They can! God gave Noah a very specific work to do – build a boat. I don’t know how much sense this work made to Noah and certainly it was crazy-talk to other people.
What if Noah had said instead, “LORD, I’m going to build a home for orphans and widows. You talk about them a lot in scripture, clearly this is a good work, I have dreamed of it for years and that’s the work I’m going to do and I will dedicate it to you.”
Would Noah and his family have been saved when the flood waters came? I think not – God saw what no one else did. He planned the work, gave it to Noah, and used Noah’s work and obedience to bless him and his family.
Likewise, I had a big dream that was a “good” dream. But clearly it’s one that I “created and entertained” in my own mind.
It’s ok to be sad about this failure, this loss of my dream. And while I’m not yet making sense of His plan that is “unfolding day after day in all the humiliations and apparent failure to achieve great things,” I do trust Him. He sees clearly what I do not.
As I pray the Liturgy of the Hours I have noted this psalm each time I read it; I think it’s time to memorize it and take it to heart:
Psalm 131
1My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.
3 Israel, put your hope in the Lord
both now and forevermore.
Coffee with God 