Errand
Whenever my spouse and I travel, inevitably, one of us (usually me) forgets to bring something deemed crucial. I have traveled without underwear (easy fix to go buy some) and medicine (more challenging in that you have to get the prescription transferred to wherever you are at, fill it, and then remember to transfer it back home) to name a couple.
This trip, I forgot my multiple USB charging brick. I’m a geek so I charge my phone, tablet, earphones and watch daily and, instead of four single bricks, I travel with one multi-USB brick. My wife had a 3 USB outlet that some vendor was giving out so I could tide myself for the trip. However, this meant that I couldn’t charge all my devices together and so I was scheming to get a multiple USB brick.
My wife ran out looking for something and I asked her to look for a 4 banger USB outlet. Knowing me better than I know myself, she checked in two different stores before giving up. I went out the next day to Walmart looking for the 4 banger USB outlet and a suede shoe cleaning kit (for my wife).
Here is where I need to stop and give some explanation. My wife and I take shopping for a specific item in a polar opposite manner. She goes into the store and, having a general idea where the item might be at, will search for it.
I, on the other hand, will find the first store clerk I see and ask where the item might be found. This schism is so familiar to us that we brag when we look for something in the way the other would do it.
To shorten my story, the security guard at the front of the store looked it up online and told me the actual aisle marker of where the suede cleaning kit was supposed to be (it wasn’t) and the guy in electronics, who was busy, told me they didn’t have a 4 banger USB outlet (my guess was that he was trying to get rid of me and had no idea one way or the other), so my trip was a bust on a busy day at that store.
This made me ponder a challenge I have. You see, my working career was mostly a planning and information gathering process. I always encouraged my staff to look at the big picture to make sure whatever we were providing fit within the actual need of the requestor (even if they didn’t like the answer). I was fairly good at looking at the big picture and often had insights that people hadn’t thought through yet.
In my faith, I’ve always believed that God will provide and that he has a plan. But that has always been difficult for me to reconcile with my desire to see the big picture and plan. I’ve tended to project and plan first and then to look to God to provide. Other people, who I admire and look up to, are able to look to God to provide and then project and plan. Both work, and in my opinion are sound approaches. The question is who do you look to first?
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” - Jeremiah 29:11 ESV
“For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.” - Luke 14:28-32
I was talking to someone I respect in the faith yesterday and I explained my challenge in reconciling my own planning with trusting God and she told me that acknowledging the challenge was crucial to finding that balance. It made me feel better.
