I love making plans. I get excited when it comes to planning future events that other people will enjoy, whether it be a large group of people, or just my family. Few things get me more excited than coming up with something for other people to enjoy, and then obsessing over the little details and tweaking things so that they can be the best that they can be. For much of my adult life, planning events and executing the events has been a large part of the various jobs that I have had. Whether it be planning retreats, summer camps, school events, or conferences, I have planned for a living, and I have loved it.
This love of planning for many years has spilled over into my spiritual and prayer life, which in some ways have been good. I have been able to lay a firm foundation for my relationship with God. I can set up a rule of life (or rather mimic the saints’ rules of life), and be disciplined in that rule.
Yet, planning your prayer and spiritual life can have its negative effects. It can be very effective for a beginner in prayer who is just trying to get the basics down, but when it comes to having a relationship with anyone, let alone God, you cannot plan it out. You can make plans with the person you are in a relationship with, but you cannot plan how the relationship itself is going to progress. If you do, then you are not really in a relationship. This is where it can be hard for us as humans, because if we cannot plan our relationship with God, that means we have to relinquish control. Much of morality (choosing right over wrong) is eventually easy for those committed to the spiritual life because we can teach our bodies to control our emotions, through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. But eventually we have to move beyond that form of control and wait on the Word of the Lord in our hearts that is driven by the Spirit.
Waiting on the Lord is tough, but is essential in any Christian’s life who desires to live out their inheritance as priest, prophet, and king. If we look at the greatest types of these figures in the Old Testament (Melchizedek, Moses, and David), we see that their relationship with God did not center on their physical moral actions (especially not their moral actions in Moses and David’s case), but rather their trust in God and waiting on Him. Moses followed the Lord to the dead end of the Red Sea and waited on the Lord to act, and He did as he promised. Before David entered into battle, he would inquire of God if it was His will, and when it was, David attacked and was victorious. We know little about the life of Melchizedek, but we know him as the king of peace. True peace only comes from someone who waits on the Lord.
If these Old Testament figures were successful in waiting on the Lord without the gift of the sacraments, how much more will we who are baptized into the Body of Christ be successful? Thirty-fold, sixty-fold, and one hundred-fold. God desires us to trust Him and to wait on Him so that He can give us success, but it is up to us to wait on the Lord like a servant who has their eyes fixed on the hand of their master, anticipating His command.
How do we wait on the Lord? By embracing silence, asking for humility, and allowing God to plan the relationship. We have so many good ideas for our life. We have so many good ideas for the use of our gifts and talents for God’s glory. Yet, God wants to show us how we are to use them. Left to our own devices, we will use our gifts and talents for a latent personal motive, even if we are also trying to glorify God. We need to let Him direct us through His Word, the sacraments, and participating in his Church so that any selfish motives can be eradicated. This means that we will have to take time and sit with Him and wait, even to the point of losing ourselves and our plans in the process. And often when it feels like God has asked us to wait more than we can bear, He will ask us to wait even a little bit more. This is where true abandonment to His will and true love between us and God is fostered, and it is essential for a relationship with Him.
So it is up to us. In a world that allows us to build our own lives and has orchestrated a culture of constant go, we are faced with a choice: Do we stay in the safety of control of the moral life (choosing right over wrong) or are we able to sit with God and wait for Him to act? While this is a difficult leap of faith to make, it is ultimately the path to sainthood. When we rely on our own plans, God will bless them, but they will be limited by our lack of imagination. If we rely on God’s plans, true miracles happen again and again and are as dependable as the sun rising and setting.
