Yesterday was one of those days when nothing seemed to work out. Nothing terrible happened. There was no crisis or emergency. It was simply one thing after another that didn't go according to plan.
My daughter's birthday is coming up, and I had already arranged for someone to make her birthday cake. It was one of those little details I had checked off my list and didn't have to think about anymore. Until I did. I found out the cake wasn't going to work out after all, which meant I suddenly needed to come up with another plan. Okay. Fine. I can find another cake.
Then there were the movers. I'm helping a friend move some things, and I had already scheduled movers to help us. The plan was for some of their belongings to be stored temporarily in my garage. Everything was arranged and ready to go. Then I received a notice from my apartment complex that they were going to be repaving the road leading to my building, which meant access would be closed for the day. And naturally, out of all the days they could have chosen to close the road, they chose the exact day I had scheduled the movers.
So now I needed another plan for that too.
Then there was my son's doctor's appointment. It had been scheduled for quite some time, but the doctor's vacation plans changed, so the appointment had to be moved. Another plan changed. Another thing to rearrange. Another item I thought was settled suddenly wasn't.
And on and on it went.
By the end of the day, I felt like I had spent most of it adjusting plans I had already made. Nothing was devastating, and every problem had a solution. We would find another cake. We would figure out what to do about the movers. The doctor's appointment would be rescheduled. But sometimes it isn't the size of the problems that gets to us. It's the accumulation of them. It's one little disappointment followed by another until you find yourself wondering if anything is simply going to go according to plan.
I'm guessing you've had days like that too. Days when the schedule you've carefully put together seems to unravel one piece at a time. Days when every time you solve one problem, another one appears. Days when you finally reach the evening and think, Well, at least that's over.
Then, the next day I woke up with a head cold.
Of course I did.
As I lay there feeling the congestion settling into my head, I couldn't help but laugh a little. Apparently, we weren't quite finished and I needed to change my weekend plans so I could get better.
But somewhere in the middle of all those changed plans, I began thinking about why days like this bother me so much. After all, I know I can't control everything. I've lived long enough to understand that plans change. People change. Circumstances change. Roads apparently get repaved at precisely the least convenient time possible. And yet there is still something in me that likes things settled. I like knowing what is going to happen. I like making a plan, checking something off my list, and knowing I don't have to think about it anymore.
Maybe that's why days like this can be so frustrating. They remind me how little control I actually have. I can make the appointment, but I can't guarantee the doctor will be there. I can schedule the movers, but I can't keep someone from closing the road. I can order the cake, but I can't guarantee the cake will actually happen. I can make all the plans I want, but I can't make everything work out.
Perhaps that's not always a bad thing to be reminded of.
Lately, I've had a theme around this specific topic. I've been discovering that following Jesus for a long time hasn't made me as independent as I once thought it would. In fact, it seems to be doing exactly the opposite.
When Life Doesn't Work Out
The truth is, there are little things that don't work out, like the things I was dealing with yesterday that honestly weren't that big of a deal. And then there are the things we desperately want to work out. A marriage. A plan for our family. The health of someone we love. Dreams we were certain would unfold differently.
If you really stop and think about it, how many of the big plans you had for your life actually worked out exactly the way you thought they would?
When I was in high school, I had a plan. I was going to go to college, become fantastically wealthy, and live in a beautiful house with white carpet and a spiral staircase right in the middle of the living room. I have no idea why the spiral staircase was so important, but apparently it was essential to my sixteen-year-old definition of success. I imagined myself wearing fancy clothes as I gracefully walked down that staircase in my fantastically wealthy life.
Can I tell you something?
I am not fantastically wealthy. I don't possess a closet full of fancy clothes, and I don't think I've ever even been inside a house with a spiral staircase in the middle of the living room, let alone owned one. At this point in my life, if someone offered me a house with white carpet and a spiral staircase, I'm not entirely sure I would want either one. Imagine trying to keep it all clean!
But it was quite the dream.
And that's really all it was. It was my dream. I don't remember ever asking God whether He wanted me to have a house with a spiral staircase. His opinion on the matter wasn't particularly important to me at sixteen. I had already decided what my life was supposed to look like.
Of course, some of the plans that didn't work out are much more serious.
I certainly didn't plan to be divorced. That wasn't what I imagined when I walked down the aisle. I didn't plan to have a child diagnosed with cancer. I didn't expect to struggle with anxiety or experience days when the pressure of life would feel so heavy that it seemed difficult to breathe. I didn't plan for physical pain, illness, sleepless nights, or any of the other things that have found their way into my story.
If I had been given complete control over my life, I wouldn't have chosen any of those things.
Maybe that's the uncomfortable realization underneath all of this: we cannot make everything turn out the way we want it to.
We can plan. We can prepare. We can work hard. We can make wise decisions and set goals for the future, and I believe there is value in doing all of those things. But ultimately, we do not have the kind of control over our lives that we sometimes convince ourselves we do.
Yesterday was simply a small reminder of that truth. I couldn't control whether someone was available to make a birthday cake. I couldn't control when the road outside my apartment would be repaved. I couldn't control whether a doctor decided to take a vacation. If I don't have complete control over something as simple as next week's schedule, how could I possibly believe I have complete control over where my life will be five, ten, or twenty years from now?
As I get closer and closer to the half-century mark, I'm beginning to understand something about spiritual maturity that I don't think I understood when I was younger.
For a long time, I think I pictured spiritual maturity a little like adulthood. When we're children, we depend on our parents for everything. Then we grow up, learn how to take care of ourselves, and eventually become independent. Somewhere along the way, I think I assumed my relationship with God would follow a similar pattern.
Maybe when we're new Christians, we need God constantly because we don't know very much yet. We need His direction. We need His reassurance. We need Him to show us what to do. But after we've followed Him for years, read our Bibles, prayed thousands of prayers, walked through difficult seasons, and learned a few things, shouldn't we eventually become a little more capable of handling life ourselves?
I'm discovering the exact opposite is true.
Spiritual maturity isn't becoming more independent from God. It's becoming increasingly aware of just how dependent upon Him we have always been.
The longer I walk with Him, the more I realize how little I can actually see. I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I don't know which of today's disappointments might actually be God's protection or redirection. I don't know which plans He will allow to unfold exactly as I hope and which ones He will completely rewrite.
But He does.
Maybe maturity isn't finally reaching the place where I can tell God, I've got it from here.
Maybe maturity is reaching the place where I no longer want to.
Maybe growing in Christ means slowly giving up the illusion of independence and learning, day after day after day, to depend more completely on the One who can see the entire story.
Growing More Dependent
Jesus says something in John 15:5 that is interesting: "Apart from me you can do nothing."
He doesn't say, "Apart from me you can do nothing until you've been following Me for thirty years." He doesn't tell us that eventually we'll become spiritually mature enough that we won't need Him quite so much. There isn't a point in our walk with Christ when we've learned enough, prayed enough, studied enough Scripture, or survived enough difficult seasons that we can finally take things from here.
Jesus simply says, "Apart from me you can do nothing."
Paul seemed to understand this perhaps better than anyone. If spiritual maturity were measured by how independently we could live our Christian lives, Paul should have been one of the most independent followers of Christ of all. He had experienced God in extraordinary ways. He had planted churches, preached the gospel despite tremendous opposition, endured persecution, and written letters that would eventually become part of the Bible.
And yet Paul didn't become increasingly impressed with his own strength. He became increasingly aware of his need for God's.
In 2 Corinthians 12:10, Paul writes, "For when I am weak, then I am strong." That seems completely backward according to the way we normally think about maturity. We tend to think growing stronger means needing less help. Paul discovered that his weakness wasn't something he had to overcome before God could use him. His weakness was the very place where God's strength became most evident.
Perhaps one of the strangest things about growing up spiritually is that we become increasingly aware of our own insufficiency.
Instead of reaching a place where we don't have to pray as much, we learn to pray sooner. Instead of needing to surrender less, we learn to surrender faster. We become less surprised when our carefully constructed plans fall apart because we've lived long enough to know that they sometimes will. And instead of immediately thinking, I've got this, we begin learning to say, Jesus, I need You in this too.
Even for something as small as a birthday cake.
Even for the movers.
Even for a doctor's appointment that suddenly has to be rescheduled.
And certainly for the bigger things that break our hearts.
Dependence on Christ doesn't mean helplessness. I can call another bakery. I can figure out another plan for the movers. I can reschedule the doctor's appointment. God has given us minds to think, hands to work, and the ability to make decisions and solve problems. Depending on Him doesn't mean sitting still and expecting Him to take care of every logistical inconvenience that comes along.
It means doing the next thing while recognizing that the outcome was never entirely mine to control.
Maybe yesterday wasn't actually a day when nothing worked. Maybe it was simply another day when God reminded me that I was never meant to make everything work.
I can make plans, but I cannot control every circumstance that touches those plans. I can work toward something with everything I have and still encounter an outcome I never expected. I can do everything I know to do and still find myself standing in a place I never intended to be.
Perhaps maturity in Christ is finally becoming comfortable with that truth.
As I grow older, I find myself less interested in proving that I can handle everything on my own. I don't want to need Jesus less. I want to recognize my need for Him sooner. I want my first response when something begins unraveling to be turning toward Him rather than exhausting every other possibility and finally turning toward Him when I've run out of ideas.
Because whether I'm facing something that will be forgotten by next week or something that changes the entire course of my life, my dependence is ultimately the same.
Jesus, I need You.
I need You for the little things that don't work out. I need You when my carefully arranged day gets turned upside down. I need You when I'm frustrated by circumstances that are inconvenient but ultimately insignificant.
And I need You when my heart is broken. I need You when the future looks nothing like the one I planned. I need You when I can't fix what has happened, when I don't understand what You're doing, and when I can't see my way through what comes next.
Maybe that's what growing up in Christ actually looks like.
Not needing Him less.
Finally understanding just how much I need Him.
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