Poor Planning Skills or Trust in God?

While I've been here in Africa one of the major areas of personal development that I've been working on has been planning. Somehow this is a skill that's I've never been great with. I was always one of those kids that would write an essay on the fly and then go back and do the outline. writing and preparations is undoubtedly my weakest area of the video production process. And I can never figure out what I'll want to eat in time to plan a shopping list so I just buy whatever looks good at the store.

I've seen this struggle recently in the specific area of transportation. Just today I realized at the last minute that I had not communicated to people when I was going to need a ride from Tenwek to Kericho and almost missed my opportunity. This past Tuesday as I was trying to make my way from Kericho to Tenwek, the ride I had arranged was coming later than I would have liked so I found another ride instead. Back at the end of June I spent a few days in Nairobi taking care of business and having some fun as well. I came to Nairobi not knowing how I was going to get to Kericho, but figured out pretty quickly what day I wanted to go. The day before I was to leave Nairobi I found a ride to take me back and everything worked perfectly. There are more as I keep going back, but you get the picture.

With all these incidents there's a common thread, each time I began to stress about getting to my destination and chastised myself for not planning things better or communicating more clearly. And yet each time everything worked out perfectly as if God had timed it all to happen just that way. On the way from Tenwek today i sat and reflected on this for a few minutes. I realized that there are some lessons that need to be learned the hard way, If I'm going to really see why it's important to arrange transport ahead of time I need to get stranded someplace. The problem is God keeps working it out so that I get where I need to be. Now don't get me wrong, I'm very happy that He is taking care of the details especially as my time on this trip is so limited, but I wonder how I will learn my lesson.

I feel like God is taking care of the details because I am trying to serve him in this ministry, but I also feel that I shouldn't just sit back and let Him work out the details, I need to try to improve my own sense of responsibility and develop my plans more. I guess what I'm saying is I can't look at God taking care of the details and say "okay so I won't make any plans, from here on God will work it out." Jeremiah 29:11 says "I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." That wonderful promise encourages us that even when OUR plans fall through, or don't really get made to begin with, God is in control. However, if we look at the verse following, God says "Then you will call upon me and pray to me... You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (vs. 12-13) These verses show us that He still expects action on our part. It's not enough to believe and trust Him to work out the details, we need to actively seek Him and I would add that in that we need to actively try to plan for the tasks that are before us, even if they never seem to come out like the plan.

How to learn tis lesson is something I still don't know, but I believe I just need to keep trying my best to make plans and arrangements, and continue trusting God to work out the details if I fail, or things change.