Mapping out life- wait, who's got the map???!?!

I'm at the Beach! YAY! =) Here's today's devo:

"After sanctification it is difficult to state what your aim in life is, because God has taken you up into His purpose be the Holy Ghost; He is using you for purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself- God has called me for this and that; you are putting a barrier to God's use of you. As long as you have a personal interest in you own character, or in any set ambition, you cannot get through into identification with God's interests. You can only get there by losing for ever any idea of yourself and by letting God take you right out onto His purpose for the world, and because your goings are of the Lord, you can never understand your ways.
"I have to learn that the aim in life is God's, not mine. God is using me from His great personal standpoint, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him, and never say- Lord, this gives me such a heart-ache.... He simply asks me to have implicit faith in Himself and in His goodness. Self-pity is of the devil, if I'm on that line I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. [in this] I have "a world within the world" in which I live, and God will never be able to get me outside it because I am afraid of being frost-bitten."
---Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, Nov. 10

It's amazing to me how, when I think about it, my plans shouldn't even be there. There's two old adages that both make sense in context, but totally conflict:

~ God helps those that help themselves
~ We plan and God laughs

They are both the counteract common misconceptions of Christian life, the first asks people not to use God as an excuse to be lazy, and the second to show that God's in control and we don't have any idea what He has for our lives.

Aren't we supposed to have plans for our lives? Are we supposed to let it all happen around us and fly by the seat of our pants? My answers so far are No and No.
If we don't plan anything for our lives, we aren't trying to listen to what God wants us to do- in that we either don't care, or won't try.
If we plan things ahead... i.e. if I adamantly say that: I'm going to get married someday, I'm going to have 5 kids, I'm going to be a pastor in a mobile mission or emergent church, and will retire at 65.... I'm not letting God have the room He deserves in my life. I'm not listening to what He wants me to do.

There's the big things in our lives where we want something for ourselves, or our kids, or our siblings or friends. We want them to get married to a certain sort of person, or have a great job, or live in a nice house. But what if that's not what God has planned? He blesses us if we love Him... but what if that blessing is being able to "Be content, whatever the circumstances"? (Paul)
If we are truly living for God we won't be trying to gain anything that we want. We won't be going to college for that job- we'll be there to gain knowledge so that God can do anything He wants to with us.

---I'm not saying don't go to college! not at all :) I'm saying, God has a plan, and it doesn't include selfish human wants and aspirations.


Listening to: the waves and Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring so that I have ideas for my variation.
Reading: Facing East, and The Bible
Thinking about: to plan or not to plan- that is the question :-)

Oh! and my computer can't log into the wireless system here because dad didn't update our firewall last week, so I'm on a landline-- aren't I so cool like that? =P haha