Remember this verse, Again

   Just as I was finishing up my walking this morning, a car stopped me as I was turning into the condo complex. A lady asked if I had seen her two dogs. They had escaped her back yard, in spite of all her preparations to keep them in, and she could not find them. I presume that she had gotten up and let them into the yard to do their "business", and had looked out later to find them missing.

   I don't know what her plans were for this morning, but I bet that getting in her car in the cold of this early part of the day and looking for two dogs, who evidently wanted to see the world, was not part of her plan for the day.

   We all make plans. Our calendars are full of stuff that we plan to do, but how do I react when I can't follow the plan and get those things done? Do I get upset, or just say "Oh, Well"? Is either one of those reactions the right one?

   Just last night, Mayre and I sat on the couch and put down some things on our calendar that we wanted to do in the days immediately ahead. We had been thwarted in our plans earlier in December to visit our daughter in Arkansas because of bad weather that had come in front of us as we were halfway there, so we wanted to try it again.

   I even have plans for this day. How will they pan out?

   Are they "my" plans? Do they belong to a larger dimension, one that I can't see all of from my vantage point? Perhaps the more important question is "Are they God's plans"?

   I get back to that verse in Jeremiah 29 that I have used many times before, where God says:

"For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope."

   That lady in the car. She told me as she pulled away that now she had a new plan. One that included taking two dogs back to the pound where they had come from. A plan born out of frustration.

   Frustration or Acceptance...two ways to look at a change of plans and maybe even dreams.

   God, first of all, let me ask for Your Plans, and second, the acceptance of any change in mine, knowing full well that I cannot see what is best.

   And don't send me back to the pound, please.