Choosing to Love the Will of God in the Life You've Been Given

The baby wakes up an hour early—the hour you had planned for quiet study and prayer.
The teen driver totals your car on her way to a ballgame.
The job interview seems to go so well that you let yourself hope, but the position goes to another candidate.

In ways that are both trivial and seismic, life does not always go according to plan. Elisabeth Elliot put it succinctly:

"Life is full of things we can’t do anything about, but which we are supposed to do something with. [Jesus] Himself endured a cross and thought nothing of its shame because of the joy.”

The writer of Hebrews recognized the encumbrance of regret and the entanglement of rejecting God's good plan, and he invites readers to throw off that burden:

"Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

The “thing” with which I’m supposed to be “doing something” in this season is Parkinson’s disease. The enormity of my project came into sharp focus for me when a simple virus accompanied by a fever put me completely out of commission for two or three days. Was it the fever? Or was it the days without my exercises and the “rest” usually prescribed for simple viruses that seemed to trigger a notable worsening of the tremor and other symptoms?

All this was not part of my plan—and neither was the wind/rain storm that took out our electricity and sprawled a massive limb and scattered tree branches across our yard! However, knowing I needed exercise and movement, I grabbed the wheelbarrow and picked up the worst debris. It felt good to be outside, moving, bending, and breathing deeply.

The diagnosis, the storm, the oil lamps, and the days without phone or internet access were not part of the plan, but they were, nonetheless, given to us “to do something with.” In his collection of Sabbath Poems,Wendell Berry tosses out a line like an afterthought:

"We live the given life, and not the planned.”

My assignment, my right response to the given life is to keep writing—stringing words together and teaching the Bible, yes, but also to keep writing more good lines in my story by the way I embody this creaturely life. That will include pouring myself into kids and grandkids, showing up in meaningful ways with the church gathered, and paying attention to the Spirit of God whose goal is to impress upon my heart the truth of the written Word of God.

By grace, we are enabled to accept what has been given with an open hand, to receive the given without allowing our longing for the “not given” to slay our gratitude or our ability to live present to the people God has wrapped up in the gift of our given life.

Will you join me in giving thanks for the Given?
Are you willing to release the planned life if it cuts across what God reveals as His plan?
Here’s a suggested prayer from the words of Jesus:
“Father, let your kingdom come. Father, let your will be done…”