⁹We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.

Proverbs 16:9

²¹You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.

Proverbs 19:21

²⁴The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?

Proverbs 20:24

²³I know, Lord, that our lives are not our own. We are not able to plan our own course. ²⁴So correct me, Lord, but please be gentle.

Jeremiah 10:23-24

Yesterday my sister and I were talking about how our lives have taken turns we didn’t expect and yet, those turns and changes brought blessing we would have other wised missed.

So often I hold tightly to my plans, the direction I decided I ought to go, the course I plotted. When something comes along that changes those plans, what is my response? I have been challenged to make the adjustment, to live in the present moment of what is rather than looking back to what was going to be.

Even as I write that I imagine myself going in one direction while looking over my shoulder at where I have come from or where I could have gone. When I do that, I can’t see where I am going, I miss all the beauty of what is right in front of me.

There’s another aspect of change that I’ve been thinking about. Jeremiah says it well in the verses above. Sometimes a change in plans is an opportunity for God to correct me. Correct my trajectory, help me change my course or perhaps, correct my attitude, behavior, priorities — whatever is getting off course. It’s an act of grace.

So I join Jeremiah and pray, “Correct me, Lord. But please be gentle!”