Do you want to make God laugh? tell him your plans

During my recent trip to Ireland to speak at a sales conference, my host shared with me one of the concepts his father shared with him during his lifetime. I won’t mention his name in case he wants to remain anonymous, but he’ll know I’m not taking credit for this idea. John shared with me that there were over 3,000 people at his father’s funeral. He really touched a lot of lives in a positive way while he was here.

He said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” I must tell you that I love this line, it may even be the title of my next book.

Now, I never met John’s father, so I can’t know what he meant by that line, so the best I can do is give you my interpretation.

Coincidentally I have been reading a great book by Brenda Ireland (she is not Irish) called What is God Waiting for? In the book, she discusses the simple idea of ​​divine delays. What is a divine delay? Well, it’s when we set goals, make plans, and work toward goals and nothing happens, it just doesn’t happen when we think it should or in the way we think it should.

As I look back on my life, I can tell you that God must be laughing a lot. For years I have asked, told, begged, humiliated, you name it, I did it and why? Because it was what he thought he wanted. Well, I really wanted it, but maybe getting it when or how I asked for it wasn’t in my best long-term or his ultimate plan for my life.

All I can say is, “God, I’m glad I was able to bring a little laughter to your daily listening to my pleas and ravings.”

I believe in planning. I believe in setting goals and I believe in having goals, but in the end there are a lot of things that can have an impact on how the final image will look.

Health problems.

Economic problems.

Divine delays.

Uncontrollable.

career issues.

Business affairs.

Family problems.

Etc.

One of my favorite people in the world is Dan Millman. Dan is the author of several books, but the most famous is The Way of The Peaceful Warrior. There were a lot of little things that I found invaluable, but the one line I took from this that has stayed with me all these years is: Release the expected and embrace the unexpected. Put another way by another of my favorite authors, Oswald Chambers, the only thing certain in life is his uncertainty.

I’ll leave the rest to you.