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.