The Rudder

Proverbs 16:1,3,9 or read all of Proverbs 16

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=pr%2016&version=NLT

A good friend is planning a trip to Nicaragua, and asked me to join him there for a couple weeks as we endeavor to bring an existing coffee company to the states. So this morning as I opened my email, there is the itinerary leaving Nov 8 back Nov 22. Back in time for Thamksgiving.

For some of you, planning is something you enjoy and you're pretty good at it. Like my wife, you're the first one to let everyone know about an event in July--and it's only October. You've already set up an excel spreadsheet to monitor all the aspects of the event. Your Outlook calendar is studded with appointments, meetings, and reminders. On your wall, or in our case the fridge, is a three-month calendar showing last month, this month, and next month. Your desk is covered by another calendar, showing just the current month. Oh, and nothing is out of place on your desk either. Your iPhone or Blackberry never leaves your side, except when it's in your hand.

For others of you, and yes, I fall in this category, planning is despised. You play it by ear and prefer to be spontaneous. You'd rather just see how things play out, than plan too far in advance. You don't understand why someone would email you about an event in July--even if it's now June.

We can find ourselves so wrapped up in planning that we think we're actually in control-or, we can feel out of control because we didn't plan well enough.

Proverbs 16:4 says, "The Lord works out everything for His own ends." So, whether you're a planner or not, remember who's really in control.