There’s an old saying we sometimes hear in our meetings: “If you
want to make God laugh, make plans.” When we hear this we usually laugh,
too, but there’s a nervous edge to our laughter. We wonder if all of
our carefully laid plans are doomed to fail. If we’re planning a big
event—a wedding, a return to school, or perhaps a career change—we begin
to wonder if our plans are the same as our Higher Power’s plans. We are
capable of working ourselves into such a frenzy of worry over this
question that we refuse to make any plans at all.
But the simple fact is that we really don’t know whether our
Higher Power’s plans for our lives are carved in stone or not. Most of
us have opinions about fate and destiny but, whether we believe in such
theories or not, we still have a responsibility to live our lives and
make plans for the future. If we refuse to accept responsibility for our
lives, we’re still making plans—plans for a shallow, boring existence.
What we make in recovery are plans, not results.
We’ll never know whether the marriage, the education, or the new job is
going to work out until we try it. We simply exercise our best
judgment, check with our sponsor, pray, use all the information at hand,
and make the most reasonable plans we can. For the rest, we trust in
the loving care of the God of our understanding, knowing that we’ve
acted responsibly.
P.S. The market was up 4 whole points today! What a come back.
