I’ve got a plan –
let’s go fail!
It’ll be great fun.
Promise.

Are you in?

What? You mean THAT enthusiastic pitch didn’t sell you on the idea of failing?

But why not? We do it all the time – minus the excitement and enthusiasm beforehand…

“Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

-Benjamin Franklin

I cringed the first time I read this quote a few years ago.
I cringed because I knew, personally, the bondage that over-planning could put a person in.
I knew that planning could itself become an obsessive, compulsive disorder that robbed people of joy and peace in life.
I knew it could become an idol.

I grew up planning out almost every waking moment of my life it seemed…
with specific times noted beside each task.
My sister can testify this is true.
She would often jump on the bed, attempting to distract me
from planning out our day – minute-by-minute, chore-by-chore.
“In the time you spent planning our day we could’ve been done with half our chores!” she would scoff.

She was right sometimes.

But, I needed this plan. I needed to know whether or not everything would fit into this day. I needed this sense of security.

I carried this ‘planning habit’ well into adulthood.
I loved to-do lists. Even more – I loved checking things off to-do lists.
Yip, I was that girl.
I’d even write down an already-completed task just to feel the rush of checking it off the list!
Oh I’m not exaggerating here.
There was a true sense of exhilaration, a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of worth that rushed over me when I would cross something off that list!

Then something happened.

I had a baby.

Then something else happened.

I had another baby.

It wasn’t too long into raising these two babies before I discovered that my plans for any given day were rarely executed with the power and success I once wielded.
So, I found it easier to give up my life-long planning habit and learned instead to just go with the flow…
This was good for me.

I discovered the freedom to embrace whatever mood my family was in, and learned to foster activities accordingly, rather than pushing everyone through a pre-planned agenda.

I found unexpected joy in spontaneity.

I learned not to base my worth on the number of items checked off a list.

 

So, when I read this quote, “Failing to plan is planning to fail” a few years back, I couldn’t help but recoil. I didn’t want to fall back into the slavery of to-do lists and striving.

I wanted, instead, to live in the freedom of Proverbs 37:23,

“The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.”

 

I had lived most of my life at one end of this ‘planning spectrum’ –
enslaved by it and placing far too much hope and self-worth in it.

Then, with a desire to live in the truth of this scripture I swung to the other end of this spectrum –
noncommittal, uncertain of the future and, therefore, complacent about planning.

Does anyone else out there find it easier to live at one end of a spectrum or the other?
At one extreme or the other?
You’re this, or you’re that?

Somehow the middle ground – that gray area – feels much trickier to navigate, doesn’t it? There’s more room for failure in the middle, it seems anyways.

At both ends of this ‘planning spectrum’ is a lie.

ONE END:

If I don’t plan or prepare for anything then I can’t fail to meet expectations or be personally disappointed when things don’t go the way I was hoping.

OTHER END:

If I plan everything with excellence and precision I will succeed at meeting others expectations and eliminate personal disappointment
because things will go the way I am hoping.

 

Again, both of these are lies with their own forms of bondage. The truth is found somewhere in the middle.

“We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps.”

Proverbs 16:9

This is the middle ground – we are free to make plans but ultimately the Lord will determine what happens.

There’s a lot of room for disappointment in this middle ground, when we do make some plans.

What if I plan a week’s worth of vacation activities and then my kid breaks their leg on the first day of the trip?
Or I finally plan a date night and then the babysitter falls through or the toddler gets the stomach flu?

There’s a lot of room for unmet expectations in this middle ground, when the Lord ultimately determines our steps.

What if I invest countless hours and thousands of dollars to develop a business or pursue a dream and it doesn’t turn out the way I hoped?

When we plan and prepare for anything, we run the risk of failing at it.
We run the risk of feeling disappointed when reality confronts expectations.
We run the risk of feeling frustrated by all our ‘pointless’ work.
And, as much as we might think we can plan and prepare our way to success we really aren’t that powerful.

“Even the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

-Robert Burns

But, the antidote to failure and disappointment isn’t ceasing to plan and prepare. Rather, this approach to life guarantees failure.

So, if failure is guaranteed on both ends of this planning spectrum then what good could possibly exist living in the middle? This is the question I’ve been pondering lately.
And I invite you to join me in the next post as I continue to unveil this super exciting plan to fail.
Oh, and I still think it’s going to be great fun…