I Tried To Engineer A Good Day

You built that day out of about nine decisions and every one of them was correct, and it landed flat.

Let me be specific about what you did, because it deserves to be said accurately rather than dismissed.

You thought about what each of them likes. You worked out the order so that the best part was not first. You checked the weather. You arranged the food so that nobody would be hungry at the wrong moment. You even, and this is the part that shows how much thought went in, left a gap in the afternoon on purpose.

And it was fine. Everybody said thank you. Nothing went wrong. And there was no moment in it, and you knew that by about four in the afternoon.

And then, three weeks later, an hour happened in a parking lot while you were waiting for something, which you did not plan and were mildly annoyed about at the time, and that is the hour your family talks about.

Let me tell you what is going on, because there is a real answer and it is in John, and it is one of the more freeing things in the New Testament for a man who builds things.

The wind bloweth where it listeth

There is a sentence in John about the wind that Christ uses to describe how the Spirit works, and the operative words are about control.

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8, King James Version)

You have a description in the written word of something that goes where it chooses, and no amount of good planning has ever once been able to summon it. John 3:8 says the wind bloweth where it listeth rather than where anybody directs it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who applies that to a man who has been trying to arrange a moment.

Read the two things it says a person cannot do. Cannot tell whence it comes. Cannot tell where it goes. Both of those are about prediction, and the verse is completely relaxed about the fact that a person has neither.

And then read what it says a person can do. Thou hearest the sound thereof. You can notice it when it happens.

You are able to hear it rather than direct it, and no day of yours has once failed because you could not do the second thing. It is written that the wind bloweth where it listeth and that a person hears the sound but cannot tell its course, which grants the noticing and withholds the control, and the Spirit of God is what makes that a relief in a man rather than a frustration.

That is the whole answer to your flat afternoon. The moment you were trying to produce is in the category of things that blow where they choose.

You cannot arrange it. Not because you planned badly. Because it is not the kind of thing that responds to arrangement, any more than the weather responds to a good argument.

You are not a man who failed to produce something, and nine correct decisions have never once been the wrong way to build a day. The Holy Spirit is the one who releases a man from an assignment he was never given, and John 3 puts the wind entirely outside anybody's direction.

What over planning costs a day

Now the practical part, and it is about a specific mechanism rather than a general truth.

A fully planned day does not fail because the plan is bad. It fails because a plan produces a manager, and a manager is not available to notice anything.

Think about what you were doing all through that afternoon. Tracking. Where everybody was, what came next, whether the timing was holding, whether the gap you left was working. All of that is attention, and all of it was pointed at the plan rather than at the people.

You are able to have your attention on them rather than on the plan, and it has never once been possible to do both at the same time. The Spirit of God is what shows a man where his own attention has been going, and it is written that a person hears the sound of the wind, which is something only an unoccupied person hears.

And here is why the parking lot worked. There was no plan in it. You were waiting for something, and there was nothing to track, and so your attention had nowhere to be except on your own children.

That is the whole difference. Not spontaneity. Attention.

You are able to be attentive without being spontaneous, and the two have never once been the same requirement. It is written that the sound is heard by somebody who cannot tell where the wind is going, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when a man's attention comes off a schedule.

Which means the answer is not to plan less in general, and it is certainly not to become a man who does not think ahead. It is to plan a day to a lower ceiling, so that there is less to track.

Plan for adequate, then stop

So here is the assignment, and the second half is the one that will be hard.

Plan the next day out to be adequate rather than memorable. And stop planning there.

Adequate means: everybody gets there, everybody eats, nobody is stuck anywhere. That is the whole specification. Four decisions rather than nine.

You are able to plan to a lower ceiling on purpose, and doing that has never once been you giving this family a worse day. John 3:8 puts the wind outside anybody's direction, which is why the ceiling is not the variable that decides, and the Spirit of God is with a man deliberately deciding less on a Thursday evening.

Then stop. And here is what stopping actually requires, because you will not simply stop. You will keep going in the background.

So make it concrete: write the four decisions down, and then close the notebook, and do not add a fifth. If a fifth idea arrives, and it will, notice that it is a good idea and do not act on it.

You are able to have a good idea and decline it, and declining it has never once been you being careless with the day. It is written that a person hears the sound and cannot tell whence it comes, and the Holy Spirit is the one who holds a man's hand off a fifth decision that would cost him his attention.

And then on the day, expect to feel underprepared. That feeling is the whole cost of this, and it is what you are paying in exchange for having your attention free. It will feel like you have not done enough, and what will actually be true is that you are available for the first time in about nine trips.