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Changing Plans

Flexibility is a good thing. If you watch Winter Wipeout on ABC, you'll find out why. This is my family's newest weekly dose of shared fun. Winter Wipeout is the winter edition of a the original, where contestants attempt to run a course in the best time. But this isn't your run-of-the-mill course. Here's how they describe their show.
Twenty-four thrill-seekers will compete in the world's largest extreme obstacle course designed to provide the most spills, face plants and wipeouts ever seen on television.
Basically the show is for the viewers who enjoy laughing at people who fall in very awkward ways. More than once my kids have laughed, and my wife has winced, as a contestant face plants and finds their feet by their ears.

Like I said, flexibility is a good thing.

The group who tried to attend a concert this past weekend also learned about flexibility. We expected to be able to buy tickets at the door. Alas, they sold out before we got there. I assumed the concert promoters would have seen that we posted the event on Facebook and expected us. That did not happen.

So our group of twenty-one went and shot lasers at one another. This was fun too. It pays to be flexible. It also comes in handy when following God.

The brother of Jesus, Jim, had something to say about all of this. (You've never heard of Jim? He signs the letter James, but I've heard his close friends called him Jim.) He said we should be very careful about making long-term plans because we can't even control tomorrow. "Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15).

Flexibility in life isn't nearly as fun, or funny, as watching people fall down. Admit it, there's about 3.6 seconds that pass from when you initially laugh to when you think to ask if they are alright. At least we can prepare physically for stretching, or at least take pain medicine when it happens by accident. But when our schedules are suddenly changed or destroyed, there is very little we can do.

Like many things, the difference afterward will be our focus. If we are concerned with our goals, we might show our inflexibility. If, however, we are focused on God and His plan, we'll be able to laugh when our plans do a back flip of sorts that we did not see coming.

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