I Left Nothing To Find Out

Every question anybody could ask about that trip already has an answer, and you are the answer, and nobody seems as pleased as they should be.

That is the thing that has been quietly bothering you, and it does not sound like a problem when you say it out loud, which is why you have not.

You do this well. Genuinely well. Nobody arrives anywhere hungry, nothing runs out, there is a plan for the weather, and the timings work. You have got better at it every year for about nine years.

And the response, from your own family, has flattened out. Not complaints. Nobody has anything to complain about. It is more that they arrive at each thing without much in them, and go along with it, and are perfectly content, and there is no charge in it anywhere.

I think I know why, and it is nothing to do with gratitude, and the fix is going to feel to you like doing the job badly.

Rest in the LORD

There is a line in the thirty seventh Psalm that gives an instruction almost nobody who is good at arranging things knows how to follow.

Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him. (Psalm 37:7, King James Version)

You have an instruction in the written word to rest and to wait, and no amount of being competent has ever once exempted you from either half of it. Psalm 37:7 gives resting and waiting as commands rather than as things that happen when the work is finished, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that available to a man who has arranged nine years of trips.

Look at the second half, because it is the harder one for you. Wait patiently for him.

Waiting is not passive in that Psalm. Read around it and it is full of activity: trusting, doing good, delighting, committing, resting, waiting. They are all verbs and they are all things a person does.

So waiting is a thing you do rather than a thing that happens to you while you would rather be doing something.

You are able to wait as an action rather than as a gap in your usefulness, and no hour of it has ever once been you failing to look after anybody. It is written rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him, given as instructions in a Psalm full of things to do, which is why the waiting is not idleness, and the Spirit of God is what makes it possible in a man who cannot stop arranging.

And here is why it belongs in an article about over planning. A day with nothing left to find out is a day with no waiting in it anywhere.

You have removed every gap. And a gap is where anticipation lives, and where somebody else's idea can arrive, and where God puts something nobody arranged.

You are able to leave a gap on purpose, and leaving one has never once been the same thing as neglecting a day. The Holy Spirit is the one who fills a space nobody planned, and Psalm 37 puts resting and waiting in the same breath as doing good.

Anticipation needs a gap

Now the practical part, and it is about what has happened to the feeling on those days.

Excitement is not caused by quality. That is the thing worth knowing, and it is why nine years of getting better has not produced nine years of more excitement.

Excitement is caused by not knowing something yet. It lives entirely in the space between now and finding out. And a fully arranged day has closed that space at every point, because every question has an answer before anybody thinks to ask it.

You are able to give this family something you cannot buy or arrange, and it has never once been the quality of the plan. The Spirit of God is what shows a competent man what competence cannot supply, and it is written that the waiting is patient and directed at somebody rather than empty.

So the flat response is not ingratitude and it is not you doing anything wrong. It is that there is nothing left in the day for anybody to lean toward.

And here is the second half of it, which will land harder. There is also nowhere for anybody else to contribute.

A completely arranged day has no space in it for a child's idea, and children only offer ideas into gaps. So the ideas stopped, probably years ago, and you have interpreted that as them being content to go along with things.

You are able to make room for somebody else's idea, and making room has never once been you handing over your responsibility for the day. It is written that the resting and the waiting are commanded to somebody who is otherwise busy doing good, and the Holy Spirit is the one who puts an idea into a nine year old in a space her father left open.

One empty afternoon, announced

So here is the assignment, and there is a specific piece of wording in it that does most of the work.

Leave one afternoon of the next trip completely unplanned. And tell everybody it is empty.

The leaving first. One afternoon. Nothing in it. Not a loose plan, not two options, not a fallback in your pocket. Nothing.

You are able to leave an afternoon with genuinely nothing in it, and doing that has never once been you being careless with anybody's day. Psalm 37:7 commands the resting and the waiting rather than the arranging, and the Spirit of God is with a man deciding in advance to decide nothing.

Now the wording, which matters more than the gap. Tell everybody, in advance, that it is empty.

Say it plainly at breakfast: Saturday afternoon has nothing in it. Nobody has planned anything. We will work out what we are doing when we get to it.

Because an unannounced gap is just a father who has not organized something, and everybody will fill it with mild worry. An announced gap is an invitation, and somebody will start thinking about it immediately.

You are able to turn a gap into an invitation by naming it, and one sentence has never once been a smaller thing than an afternoon's arrangements. It is written that the waiting is patient and expectant rather than anxious, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in a space a family has been told about in advance.

Then, on the day, do not rescue it. This is the hard part and it is the whole exercise. At some point in that afternoon there will be twenty minutes where nothing is happening and somebody is slightly bored, and everything in you will want to produce a plan.

Let it be boring. The idea, when it comes, will come out of the boredom, and it will come from somebody who is not you.