Our Daily Bread (or "The Death of the Five-Year Plan")

My family and I are all creative types, which means we tend to not be very organized. Our schedules and routines stay very flexible, and it doesn’t take much to pre–empt them. We do a lot of things on the spur of the moment. (This drives my mother crazy, because she is the opposite and needs to plan things way in advance. But that’s another story…)

Anyhow, of the three of us, I’m probably the most organized and meticulous, and the least flexible. But even I have a messy desk and have a thread of chaos weaving through me.

The other thing about us is that especially when it comes to ministry, with any ministry vision we’ve had or project we’ve worked on, we’ve never been able to come up with the proverbial “five-year plan.” We’ve had goals and plans galore, but nothing quite that organized. There are people (especially church-growth people) who would look down on us for that–and for a long time we looked down on ourselves for it. But it wasn’t for a lack of desire to plan, or even a lack of discipline. We’re creative types, but we could have handled it. No…we just have never had enough information to plan that far ahead.

One day a dear friend and mentor help set us at ease about this. He told us that the type of vision we had meant that God often would not give us the whole picture–only a piece at a time. He would require us to trust Him with the unknowns and allow Him to guide our path, step by step.

And boy, was he right. He probably doesn’t even know how right he was.

Now, I’m not opposed to having vision (that would be unbiblical), or having no dream or desire. Nor am I opposed to five-year plans, or setting tangible goals and reaching them. That’s all good. But what do you do when God doesn’t give you enough information to make that kind of plan?

Believe it or not, that’s also Biblical.

Look at the nation of Israel. They had a God-given dream set in front of them–the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey. They knew where their ultimate destination was. But have you ever seen one of those Bible maps of their 40-year trek through the wilderness? All that going in circles, zigging and zagging, all through that wilderness–and all without the benefit of stockpiles of food and water?

They had an idea of where they were going, but they were not given the five-year plan, or the forty-year plan. For forty years, those children of promise lived a day at a time, only receiving enough food to last for that day (in the form of manna from heaven). They had to trust God through that season, literally every step of the way. When He moved, they moved; when He stopped, they stopped. Day after day. For forty years.

There are just some seasons in following God where the five-year plan goes out the window, and you just have to trust Him for your daily bread. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a plan; it just means the plan is in God’s hands, that you are not in control. And part of discipleship means learning to be okay with that, at least once in awhile.

I’ve mentioned before that it seems like this is one of those seasons for us, where there are dreams and desires, but no laid-out direction on how to get there. All we have is a leading to take this step here, and another step here…or wait here for just a bit. To someone looking from the outside, it might look a bit aimless, like wandering in circles in the desert. But a closer look shows that Someone really does have a plan–and He sees a lot farther than five years.

I guess we just have to trust Him.