the idea of spontaneity.

Hey friends! Happy summer!!! Woooohoooo!

We’re jumping right into this because what I want to share with y’all is something SO fun & exciting and I’m stoked to write about it! This is something I have wanted to write about for awhile now and I seriously cannot wait to attempt to formulate 3 months of this exciting idea into a blog post….sooo LET’S DO THIS.

About 5 months ago I really felt like the Lord threw a curveball at me. I started questioning His plan for me and how it compared to the plan I had for myself. It wasn’t until one day as I was talking to my mom that she reminded me that sometimes things don’t go right in our plan and that’s because guess what?! it’s not our plan...it’s His. Yup mom, that little quote of yours still convicts me on the daily;) - yet I appreciate it.

At the time I started this blog, I was starting to think about where I was going to go to college and I had absolutely no idea where I was going to end up. That is when the Lord started teaching me how to trust His timing and plan for my life, rather than my own. Since then, it’s seemed as if this idea is something the Lord is repeatedly teaching me. Every time it happens I say “Okay Lord. I get it. You want me to trust in Your plan. Got it.” … and I do. Yet, He does this over and over again to where I feel like I’ve been taught this lesson more times than I could count. I think this is because I still haven’t grasped the entirety of this idea. Yes, I have come to the realization that my entire life and everything that happens is in the hands of God, but I still have a lot to learn about that. Every time I feel as if something doesn't go the way I expect it to or I find out the Lord has something else already written into His plan for me, I receive a new little tid-bit of an idea the Lord is teaching me.

Recently, this “tid-bit” has been the idea of spontaneity.

Spontaneity: proceeding from natural feeling or native tendency without external constraint /// the quality of being natural rather than planned in advance

I think I’ve always had the mindset that when the Lord redirects me to follow the path of His plan for my life, when it’s not necessarily part of my own plan, I seem to do it, but out of duty and not delight. This isn’t always the case, but it sometimes is. I think “ugh okay Lord I guess what I had planned for myself wasn’t a part of your plan for me as well, but I’ll do whatever it is or go in whatever way you’re leading me because your my Father”. There’s nothing wrong with this and it’s good I respond in this way, to where I’m still trusting that His plan is greater than my own, BUT I can still respond so much better.

God has shown me in the past three months that responding to His plan for my life and following it can be done out of delight and not just the feeling of knowing that’s what I’m supposed to do. He wants us to experience SO much more from this.

So here it is...this is what the Lord has taught me recently:

In trusting in Him and allowing His plans for my life to be the plans I acknowledge, I am able to experience more freedom and live spontaneously and alive! This is such a fun thing the Lord invites us to do.

We are able to live like this because Jesus died for us, saved us, and allows us to live a life of freedom. Because of this, we don’t always have to have it all planned out because His plan is greater. The Lord has always taught me that His plan is better than my own, but He’s now showing me that this can be a fun thing and freedom can be found in this. I always used to think that the reason I handed my life over to Him was to trust Him and allow Him to carry my burdens, but truly it is to let me live fully alive and spontaneous.

The Lord is teaching me how THERE IS fun in not always having a plan. Something I’ve never truly believed before.

I’ve encountered a lot of spontaneous moments lately & the Lord has used these experiences to show me how much fun and joy is found in the unknown and unexpected. The word unexpected is usually looked at in a negative way, as something that is scary and surprising, but I think God wants us to look at the unexpected with excitement and readiness. The Lord hopes our heart longs to be fully alert and engaged with the things that are on His heart for the present hour. He wants us to focus on the now, rather than the future, and live 100% present. In living like this, we will be able to see the things He is showing us right before our eyes, hear the things He’s speaking to us, and be prepared for whatever it is He has in store for us. When we aren’t living like this and we’re too stressed about the future, we could be missing out on what it is that the Lord has for us at this very minute!!! God doesn't want you to miss out on the now!!!! & that’s why He chooses to go ahead and perfectly plan everything else for us. God doesn’t only want us to trust the plan He has for us, but He actually wants us to find joy, and freedom, and life in this!

What I’ve learned is that I was too focused on this upset feeling of the Lord leading me away from these great perfect plans that I had created for myself when all He wanted me to do was realize that He was never leading me away from my plans, but instead trying to kindly offer me freedom from the stress I used to have attempting to “plan” my life. In doing this, I became blind to what He was trying to teach me and offer me in the present moment because I was way too focused on things that hadn’t even occurred yet. I thought I was missing out on the plans I had created for myself when the truth is I was missing out, but not on that. I was missing out on the freedom the Lord was offering to me. The freedom of experiencing fun even in the unexpected and unplanned moments.

I don’t want any of you to miss out on this and that’s why I so badly wanted to share my heart in this. When God’s plan doesn’t end up lining up with ours, don’t waste time becoming upset or questioning why that had to happen, but rather spend that time thankful you're not the one in charge. Take a step back, breathe, and remember you’re His child and you can live freely in the joy and spontaneity He wants you to find relief in.

Lastly, here is something I have been reminding myself over & over lately.

{{Whatever plans I make for myself, His are greater.}}

And rather than looking at this with frustration that life doesn’t always go the way I expect it to, I have started to look at this with thankfulness, relief, freedom, joy, and expectancy.

It’s summer!!!! So let’s all be spontaneous + live alive, finding FUN in the unknown and unexpected plans the Lord has for us.

xoxo,

b.

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