This isn’t what I signed up for!

Plans can change quickly.

You know how it is, you have a dream, a vision, or just a simple goal of accomplishing something, you put together a rudimentary plan that will get you from the starting line to the finish line, and shortly after you launch out things change.

Dramatically!

What seemed like a clear path to success becomes an obstacle course! Kind of like this …

As the changes to your plans roll in, you think to yourself, “This isn’t what I signed up for!”

So what do you do?

Maybe the story of Georgene Johnson of Cleveland, Ohio can help answer that for us.

The Prescott Courier first told the story of how, in 1990, Johnson was a little depressed after turning 42. She decided she wanted to be in better shape for the second half of her life. So she began exercising, then jogging, then running. As she progressed, she decided what she really needed was a goal to focus on, so she signed up for a 10k (six mile) race and began training.

The morning of the race, Johnson was excited and ready to run! She arrived early and was soon distracted by the mass of runners as they prepped and stretched. Before she knew it, the horn sounded for the runners to line up, and Georgene followed the pack to the starting line, and they were off!

Four miles into the race, with no turnaround in sight, Georgene asked a fellow runner when they could expect to start heading back.

“He just kind of looked at me strangely like, ‘Are you for real?'” she later explained.

It was then she realized she was not in the 10k race at all. She was in the Cleveland Marathon! Both races shared the same finish line, but the 10k was set to start 15 minutes after the marathon. Because she was early (and distracted), she lined up too soon. So she just kept running, looking for someone to help.

Twenty-six miles later, she crossed the finish line. Her previous longest race was just eight miles. When asked what went through her mind when she realized she was in a marathon, Johnson replied, “This is not the race I trained for. This is not the race I entered. But for better or worse, this is the race I am in.”

What do you do when you find your plans changing into an entirely different course than you had prepared for?

Just keep running!

God has a plan for us that is bigger and better than the ones we come up with for ourselves, and He often causes sudden changes to our plotted course in order to put us on an entirely different track than we intended to be on.

“‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the Lord. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts,'” Isaiah 55:8-9.

“This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength,” 1 Corinthians 1:25.

“Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised,” Hebrews 10:36.

Just keep running!

Scotty