Have you ever been in the middle of doing something, actually something you want or feel you really need to do, and the phone, urgent email, or knock at the back door brings your agenda to a screeching halt? It’s the “Oh man!” moment where, all in one increment of time, feelings of excitement, disappointment, and guilt, converge in a tangle of emotions to be sorted through later. It’s the realization that completing what’s in front of you now needs to take a back seat to what has come up and that your line up of the calendar day is not as important as you thought.
This happens to me quite a bit. What I want to see accomplished, my “want to” list, quickly gets pushed to the side and shoved into tomorrow, because something more urgent—especially to those in my life that I love—takes its place. Whether it’s the call to come help because a tire has gone flat or the plea because someone is suddenly ill, the day begins to take on a different look and feel. My well planned and ordered schedule that started in the quiet and tranquility of the morning is rearranged and suddenly doesn’t in the slightest resemble what I had imagined. My outside demeanor clicking down the track in seemingly fine form is looking nothing like the disquiet taking shape on the inside.
My mother-in-law, Betty, told me once that when driving, she basically moves forward by “backing up.” Her explanation: because she always left the proper distance between her and the automobile in front of her, combined with the continual stream of cars on the freeways of California, another driver would instantly pull into the space she had left open. In order to create the distance needed to come to a sudden safe stop, she would take her foot off the accelerator, slowing down with a jolt. Anyone riding with her would be pushed forward into their seat. Upon accelerating again, they would be jerked backward. This motion led her to coin the phrase, “driving forward by backing up.” I can’t help but think, as strange as it seems, this same way of thinking is analogous to living a life of giving-and-releasing, one that is grace-filled and gracious. Instead of charging forward, holding tightly to our “plan for the day,” we might find by “backing up” and going a different way, unexpected blessings we would have otherwise missed.
In the Bible, in Jeremiah 29:11-14 (NLT), God tells us, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,’ says the Lord.”
If only we would “let go” and “let God”—what a blessing that could be!
Kimberly
