Want to make God laugh? tell her your future plans...

It is so funny to me that we live in a world so full of strategic plans, life goals, measurable outcomes, tests, and performance anxiety. Why can't we just get it that if we were to stop and listen to the still small voice within that we would have all the guidance and acceptance we need?
Don't get me wrong here, i am a man of action...i have had to learn to make plans, and plan options, and i like being able to come into the office, write up my to do list for the day, and look at the end of work to see what i've been able to check off. Not having an idea and a direction can drive me nuts. Maybe it does you too, so here is a holy trinity of letting God direct your decision and planning:
1. Forget goals. Long term (NOT short term) goals are a quicksand pit to me. When you set big global goals and for one reason or another can't meet them, then you're worse than you started from...you judge yourself and the world around you because of the failure. So focus on the next week, the next month, and at the very most, ask yourself where you want to be a year from now. Everything else is setting up for failure.
2. become a list person. When we try to keep the actions and needs in our lives confined to our head, we lose and forget things, or get overwhelmed by the enormous amount of projects and chores to do. So write it down! Make it a sacramental act of the inward change that you are clearing out these lists and dreams and nightmares to make room for the divine.
3. Talk to God. Converse with God. People who ask me about how i pray are appalled sometimes at the tone i use and the words i hear back from within during prayer time. The whole concept started with a book called "Conversations with God" where this guy started writing a letter to God to vent and complain about everything, and suddenly realized that answers to his questions were coming to him when he just wrote in stream of consciousness. Start with this kind of process. Write down a prayer to God, then write the first thing that comes to your mind. Eventually, you'll see the difference between God speaking and your own ego. And eventually, you'll leave the paper behind for a true inward dialogue with God. trust this...if we believe that through Christ we have a loving and creative relationship with God, then just blathering about a litany of "Good Lord, help me to (insert request here)" is really insulting to the Gospel message and Christ's work.

try these three. Maybe you'll begin to get less anxious, laugh more, relax more fully, and get yourself out of your own way because you've just made conscious effort to reunite with your creator, who knows you better than anyone, and who knew every strength and fault in your character and soul before you even took your first breath...