"Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
~Exodus 14.13-15
I'm working on my to-do list for the week. These things always feel like a bit of a joke because, for me, planning my life doesn't go any better than planning a novel or an essay.
As far as writing goes, it's easier for me to write start to finish, then go back and clean it up. That's easier with essays. I'm the type to finish a project and move on to the next, which means I haven't read most of my own writing. Storyboarding's a challenge because I create the outline/storyboard/insert-benevolent-term-here I know full well it's going to change...sometimes within the hour. I don't revisit the old one, I just make a new one. It's easier. It helps me keep things fresh in my mind. I've always had to write things down to remember, so maybe it all goes back to that.
My ability to plan my life, however, is far more daunting a challenge. Storyboarding, unless you're co-writing, really only involves one person and has far fewer variables as a result. Life, however, involves a few billion people who rack up the variable count exponentially.
In the real world, I'm enough of a control freak/creature of habit that you're better off not giving me a set time and date for something than changing it on me three times. And if something upsets the "perfect scenario" I've created for myself, it's a real fight not to just shut down and say forget it. And we're not talking big, drastic changes. We're talking the small ones that only throw the system off by an hour, maybe. Or a day. And I'm evidently enough of a control freak to let that one little thing be the reason I pick up my toys and go home.
Right...I'm the mature one...no, really... 0=)
But what most writers will tell you is that it's often the one thing you didn't plan, the time something changed on a whim or because it seemed more natural when you got neck-deep in a scene, that really makes the story. So we really can't worry too much, because in the end the random hitches and alterations to the timeline only serve to make everything vastly better than what you'd originally planned.
I don't think God's against planning. Jesus himself, talking to people working through whether they wanted to follow him or not, pointed out that no one starts a building project without first deciding if they have enough money to see it through. There's plenty of places in Scripture where a planning phase occurred. But Scripture's also quick to point out the futility of those plans if God is given no say in the matter, if we rush ahead without any consideration, or if we hold our own will so tightly in our grip we sabotage ourselves.
" The plans of the heart belong to man,
But the answer of the tongue is from the LORD.
All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight,
But the LORD weighs the motives.
Commit your works to the LORD
And your plans will be established. "
~Proverbs 16.1
