Does God Really Laugh At Our Plans?
FROM SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR, IELA GALIANO-WILLIAMS
What parts of your life do you share with God? Are there some things that come up easily in prayer & other things that feel hard to mention at all? A common thread I’ve noticed in conversation with others, is that sometimes it feels difficult to share our plans with God. We may know intellectually that God already knows the desires of our heart, but actually bringing them forward in prayer can still take a lot of courage.
After getting engaged to my now husband, I received a lot of surprised responses from new people I met on how young I was to be getting married. A lot of prayer, conversation, & discernment had gone into the decision to move forward in engagement, yet, hearing these responses brought back doubts in my head. They were right, I was young! I felt ready, but was I actually ready? Had I missed something along the way while making my plans? I would quickly quiet this voice in my head, but it kept persisting & it was some time before I actually sat down to have an honest conversation with God about it.
Thankfully during this time, I had the opportunity to go on a retreat to an island off the coast of Canada through an internship program I was part of. Towards the end of the retreat, they took all of us interns up a beautiful hiking trail where we were left alone for the afternoon to each make our way back to the house at our own pace. Before heading back, I took a moment to sit on the ridge, & look out over the view. It was in that moment where I finally gathered up my courage & quieted my heart enough to ask God the question, “Am I ready?” As soon as I posed the question, I instantly heard God respond “You are ready.” My heart filled with relief. I had been so scared to bring my plans & doubts vulnerably before God as I was afraid to hear a response I didn’t want to hear, when what I actually heard was a confirmation of the longings of my heart.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans?” This phrase is meant as a humorous joke to say that we can’t always predict what life will look like. Yet, this concept of who God is, can actually be very harmful to His character & to our relationship with Him. God may gently help guide us in another direction as needed, but He will never laugh at us. When I brought my question of ”Am I ready?” to God, He did confirm the desire of my heart; yet there have also been times when I have felt God tell me to wait, or to go in a different direction. What I have never felt, is laughed at.
The desires & longings of our hearts are precious to God. You probably feel honored when a friend shares their dreams with you, & you get excited about helping them plan! So why wouldn’t God feel the same way? We may not always receive an instantaneous confirmation & agreement like I did on that hike, as, to be honest, God has yet to respond to me that quickly since then, but God does delight in our dreams.
I work with a lot of college students, & there is an incredible amount of pressure for them to figure out what comes next. So much so, that it can feel debilitating to know which step to take to move forward even a little bit. While there are some unique aspects to this stage of life, I think a lot of us can probably relate to this feeling. We worry about following the “right” plan & sometimes don’t want to let God in on the desires of our hearts for fear that it won’t work out, or He will just tell us “no” after so much time thinking it through. But I think that God wants to dream with us. God gifted us with the creativity & desires to make decisions, plans & goals. We get to be co-creators in this life in a beautiful way.
So, as we start a new year, what are the desires of your heart that you have been worried about voicing? Are there things you have been afraid to bring up with God for fear of how He might respond? If this is the case, I invite you to take the first step in opening your dreams to God. Maybe even just saying, “I want to talk about this with you, but it feels hard.” Vulnerability with God is a practice that takes time & it is okay to take it step by step.
To paraphrase the words of a college student who recently shared their testimony in a chapel service in front of the whole campus, we take a step forward, not always knowing if it is the right one, but we take it anyway & we trust that God will be there with us.