Plans

When ours are interrupted, his are not. His plans are proceeding exactly as scheduled, moving us always (including those minutes or hours or years which seem most useless or wasted or unendurable) "toward the goal of true maturity."  - Elisabeth Elliot

Thinking about plans today, and I thought about Elisabeth Elliot's quote on plans. I can't help but smile when I think about how God's plans are always exactly as scheduled.  Some days like today, I question God's plan for my life.  I'm a very ambitious lady, and I feel like I'm just standing still lately. But at the same time, there is peace at being exactly where God has me.  I suppose it is strange how the times in my life that have been busy or scary have been easier for me than this slow paced time.  Life is so flexible at the moment that it has given me many new opportunities to minister in my community that I normally would not have.  God is maturing in this season of my life for something.  I have no idea what His something is, but I'm going to trust Him.  I'm sure one day I will look back at this time of rest and be very thankful for it.

Elliot's quote comes from Romans 12:2 JBP  "Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity."

Here is a couple more versions of Romans 12:2

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."  Rom. 12:2 NIV

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you." Rom. 12:1-2 MSG

God brings the best out of me....with His plan!