Tag: life lessons

We Make Plans. God Laughs: Finding Peace in Life’s Turns

You might have heard me say, We make plans. God laughs. I must admit the origin of my saying is credited to an old Yiddish saying: “Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht.” Man plans… and God laughs. This concept has a way of finding you at just the right moment. God’s laugh is not a cruel or mocking laugh, but something far more mysterious. A laugh that seems to say, “Oh, my dear one… you see only the next step. I see the whole path.”

We are planners by nature. We map out our lives like architects of certainty:

    • Where we will go
    • Who we will become
    • What we will build
    • Who will be there with us when we arrive

We call it responsibility, vision, or purpose, and to be fair… there is nothing wrong with any of that, but somewhere along the way, many of us quietly cross an invisible line. We move from participating in life… to believing we are in charge of it. That’s usually when life smiles… and gently rearranges everything.

We make plans. God laughs.

I’ve noticed something over the years. The moments that shape us most… rarely come from our plans. They come from interruptions. Unexpected conversations. Unplanned opportunities. Uninvited endings.

    • A job you thought was secure disappears overnight… only to redirect you toward work that actually fits your soul.
    • A relationship you were certain would last forever… ends without warning… and somehow opens you to a deeper understanding of love than you had before.
    • A move you never intended to make… places you exactly where your life begins to expand.

We would not have chosen these things, and yet… looking back… many of us would not undo them because something greater was at work.

We make plans. God laughs.

Then there are the moments that are not just inconvenient, they are sacred in a way that stops time.

Just last Wednesday, I stopped by to visit a friend of nearly fifty years. Three months shy of that milestone. He didn’t answer the door. It was unlocked, so I stepped inside… and found him shortly after he had passed from an unexpected fall.

He and I had plans.
He and his new bride had plans.

And in a moment… all of those plans became something else. Unfinished sentences. Unwalked paths. Unlived tomorrows.

He had so many friends—from different walks of life—who loved him deeply. And now, that love is meeting this moment in its own way… in shock… in sorrow… in reflection.

His wife… his friends… all of us who knew him… are feeling the weight of this loss in ways that are still hard to put into words. It is still so fresh.

In the quiet that follows something like that… you don’t hear laughter.

You hear silence.

You feel the weight of how fragile all of this really is.

Even here… there is something quietly undeniable: life did not consult our plans.

We make plans. God laughs.

There are times when that phrase can feel almost too simple… too light… because when you’re standing in the middle of loss… or shock… or heartbreak… It doesn’t feel like laughter.

It feels like the ground has shifted beneath your feet.

Dreams pause. Time bends. Certainty dissolves.

That’s where we misunderstand the phrase because perhaps it isn’t about humor at all. Perhaps it is about perspective. The distance between what we can see… and what we cannot.

What if that “laugh” is the echo of a greater intelligence at play?

Not dismissing us… but holding a view so vast that our carefully crafted plans look like sketches in sand. We draw lines. Life brings the tide.

The promotion that didn’t happen… the meeting that got canceled… the flight that was missed… and later you discover that the “delay” was protection.

The closed door was direction. The interruption was alignment.

How many times have we said, “At the time, I didn’t understand… but now I see”?

How many times has life rerouted us… only to land us exactly where we needed to be?

We make plans. God laughs.

So what do we do with this? Do we stop planning? Do we abandon vision? Do we give up on building anything meaningful? Not at all. We still plan. But we plan differently. Not with clenched fists… but with open hands.  Not with rigid expectations… but with flexible awareness. Not “this must happen”… but “I am willing to meet what comes.” Because there is a quiet strength in holding your plans lightly. It allows life to move. It allows grace to enter. It allows something better—something unseen—to emerge.

Shift from Control to Trust

At some point, the most powerful shift we can make is this:

From control… to trust.

From certainty… to curiosity.

From “my way”… to “show me the way.”

Because control says, “I know how this should go.”

Trust says, “I am willing to discover how this unfolds.”

And strangely enough, when we release our grip… we often find ourselves more aligned than ever before. Not because we forced it… but because we allowed it.

We make plans. God laughs.

A Different Kind of Planning

What if planning was never about predicting the future… but about preparing your presence for whatever arrives?

    • Can you remain open when things change?
    • Can you stay grounded when the unexpected comes?
    • Can you love fully, even knowing nothing is guaranteed?

That kind of planning… God doesn’t laugh at. That kind of planning… He meets you in.

If there is anything this life continually invites us into, it is this:

To participate fully… without assuming control.

To love deeply… without demanding permanence.

To build boldly… without believing we own the outcome.

Because in the end… We do make plans. Beautiful ones. Meaningful ones. Heartfelt ones.

We make them with the people we love… with friends who become family… with those whose presence quietly weaves meaning into our days.

And sometimes… without warning… those shared plans are left in our hands… while the one we made them with is no longer there to carry them forward.

And yet, even then… The love remains. The impact remains. The connection does not disappear—it transforms. And often, it is carried not by one… but by many. By every life they touched. By every heart now holding a piece of what was shared.

But often… Life unfolds into something else entirely. And in that unfolding… if we are willing… We may just hear it.

Not a laugh at us… But a gentle, knowing whisper carried through every unexpected turn: “We make plans. God laughs.”

And somehow… that becomes not a statement of defeat… but an invitation into something far greater than anything we could have planned.

 

 

Why Are the Same Problems Showing Up in My Life Relentlessly

There comes a moment that creeps up on you, and you don’t see it coming; all of a sudden, you find yourself noticing something that doesn’t seem right. Cycles involving different people, circumstances, and seasons of life, yet the outcome remains the same. The same frustration, conflict, and feeling that somehow… you’ve been here before.

At first, it feels like bad luck. Then it feels like coincidence. Eventually, if you’re honest enough to sit with it, a deeper question begins to surface:

Why does this keep happening to me?

Most people spend their lives trying to solve problems without ever identifying patterns. They treat each experience as isolated. A difficult relationship becomes about that person. A business setback becomes about that situation. A disappointment becomes about that moment. But life is not as random as we might like to believe, it is patterned. Those patterns are not there to punish you, they are there to reveal you.

What feels like repetition is growth, refinement, and the evolutionary process trying to engage you.

These similar experiences return again and again, not because you are stuck, but because something in you has not yet fully seen, understood, or integrated what these experiences are trying to teach you. Until it is integrated, the pattern returns. Not more harsh or loud, but as that familiar irritation or challenge.

Life does not move in circles; it moves in a spiral. At the beginning, the spiral is wide. Experiences feel spread out. Time feels expansive. Lessons feel disconnected. But as life progresses, the spiral narrows. Experiences begin to feel closer together. Patterns become more noticeable. Repetition becomes harder to ignore.

If growth has been minimal, those repeating experiences frustrate you, and you’re likely to express, “Why does this keep happening to me?”

On the other hand, if you have learned from the experience and grown in your understanding of it, something shifts, and you say, “Ah, I’ve seen this before.”

Same experience. Different awareness. That is the difference between repetition and recognition.

The shift does not happen in the midst of the event. It happens in your awareness.

Two people can go through nearly identical experiences. One becomes reactive, defensive, and discouraged. The other becomes reflective, grounded, and aware. The difference is not intelligence. It is not talent. It is not even opportunity. It is growth.

Patterns become visible the moment you stop asking, “What is happening to me?” And start asking, “What is this revealing about me?”

That question changes everything.

This intentional subtle shift gives you a higher perspective. Now the experience is no longer something to escape. It becomes something to understand.

I remember a season in my own life when I began to notice a pattern I could no longer ignore. Different people. Different environments. Still, the same dynamic.

I found myself carrying more than my share. Stabilizing situations. Holding things together.

At first, I believed it was strength, and in some ways, it was, but over time, I realized it was also constant repetition. Not because others were demanding it, because I kept stepping into the field of these experiences unconsciously.

That realization was not condemning. It was clarifying.

The moment you see the pattern for what it is, you are no longer trapped inside it. You are standing above it.

This is where most people misunderstand love. They think love is emotional support, encouragement, or affection. But real love, mature love, does something far more powerful. It tells the truth. Not harshly or reactively, but clearly.

Love says:

“This is the pattern.”
“This is where you are participating.”
“This is where growth is available.”

Without that kind of love, whether from others or from within, you remain in the loop. Why? Because avoidance feels easier than awareness.

If patterns are ignored, they don’t disappear; they compress. The spiral tightens, and these experiences come closer together. Frustration increases, and eventually, life begins to feel like pressure rather than progress. But that pressure is not punishment, it is invitation.

You are not being asked to fix everything at once. You are being invited to notice. To slow down just enough to see what has always been there. To recognize that the repetition is not failure. It is feedback.

Here is a line that belongs in the book—and is worth carrying with you:

Life does not repeat to punish you. It repeats to reveal what you are ready to outgrow.

If the same problems keep showing up in your life, it is not because you are unlucky. It is because something important is trying to become visible, and once it becomes visible, it becomes optional.

You can continue unconsciously stepping into these revisiting cycles or you can begin to live deliberately.

The goal is not to eliminate challenge. The goal is to increase awareness.

When awareness increases, something remarkable happens, the same experience no longer produces the same result. Not because life changed; because you did.

These ideas are explored more deeply in Love Like It’s the Only Thing That Matters, where we look at how life moves in cycles, and how love, when practiced with awareness and structure, becomes the force that breaks repetition and builds something that endures.