I Got This....

I’m what some people (my husband, namely!) would call an excessive planner- I like to know what’s going on next, where we’re going to be, what we’re going to be doing, how long it’s going to take, how many changes of underpants are required, what snacks to bring, and any and all possible roadblocks that might derail the aforementioned answers.

It was the week before I was going solo with the kids on a 22 hour road trip to meet my husband in Florida where he's working temporarily.  Everything was falling into place and I was ready to take on a task I thought would be relatively easy: putting on the rooftop carrier.  My wonderful husband usually does this, but since he’d left 6 weeks earlier, it was on me and I was going in with the ultimate, She-Hulk, I got this, amazing wife attitude….

I have a small SUV-it’s actually more like a station wagon-but it has a sunroof, which really ups the "cool factor"! I hoisted the carrier up onto the top of my roof rack.  So far, so good! Then I opened it so I could secure the hardware to the roof rack.  You guessed it, that’s when things got complicated! I couldn’t get the hardware secured around my roof rack, so I figured if I climbed onto the roof, put my body partially inside the plastic top carrier, I could get a better look.  Did I mention my driveway is a hill?!  Sounds foolproof, right?!

Just as I straddled the hood of my car and climbed up the windshield, the top carrier slipped.  I grabbed it and in the process, flipped off the front of my car. At this very moment, my sundress found it’s way from conservatively below the knees, to completely over my head (yes, I was THAT confident, that I was doing all of this in a dress).  Everyone on the block was now seeing MUCH more than usual while walking their dogs, riding their bikes, and playing with their children-let’s just say, I don’t think I’ll be getting Christmas cookies from the neighbors this year!

After dusting myself off and reclaiming the smallest shred of dignity I had left (I know, I had no dignity at all, but I was pretending I did so I still appeared to be in control of the situation, so sad!) I got the roof carrier secured and loaded.  It was at this moment, I wish I had asked someone for some help instead of insisting that I could do this myself!

That story is the perfect example of how I all too often say to God, “I made a plan, so I got this! I’ll call you when it’s something I REALLY can’t handle, but until then, I don’t really need you today!”

The part I so often miss in my fleshly pursuit of control is that God WANTS me to ask Him for help! His plans are abundantly better than anything I could think or imagine (Eph. 3:20) So why do I continue to work so hard to just fulfill my mediocre plans when I can have His Abundance Plan?

In my life, this will always be a challenge b/c we’re constantly on the move, but for those of you who may never move to a new place, I challenge you to stop and ask God to reveal His Abundance Plan in your life! Don’t get so caught up in the planning and listing, instead get caught up in the praying and watching. 

His word Says: (1 John 5:14-15)

¹⁴ This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. ¹⁵ And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.