How To Use A Palm Pilot

“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”
(Proverbs 16:9)

“We live the given life, not the planned”
(Wendell Berry, )

The small screen in my hand went blank and then displayed a message that I didn’t understand, but which I knew was bad news: “Fatal error.” There were some brief instructions about pressing a reset button. I followed those instructions carefully, but to no avail. When the little device in my hand came back on, every thing I had recorded on it was gone. It was as if my life had vanished, a kind of electronically induced amnesia. When my palm pilot went blank, I momentarily forgot everything I was planning to do that day, everything I had planned for that week. My carefully scheduled plans were erased. After my initial panic, I managed to recover most of that information by hooking up the handheld device to my computer – but the lesson had been learned. Plans can be lost in an instant.

The name says it all: “Palm Pilot.” Palm is the center of my hand. It suggests a firm hold on something. Pilot suggests one who guides, drives, controls. The “palm pilot” places the direction of my life squarely in my hand. Calendar, clock, memo pad, to do list, phone directory, it’s all right there. And it works pretty well – until the fatal error comes and exposes the fragility of our life management program and the tentativeness of our plans.

To live yielded before God does not mean refusing to own or use a palm pilot. It does mean being able to recognize the myth such a device can create – the myth of having my plans firmly in the center of my own hand. To live yielded and surrendered before the Lord is to hold our plans loosely.

There is nothing particularly “spiritual” about this. All people, regardless of their faith, know that plans can change or fall apart. We begin learning this early in life. I can remember a childhood Christmas Eve when my father (a pastor) received a call at my grandmother’s house about the impending death of a church member. The annual ritual of dinner and gift opening was interrupted for us. We made it through the meal, then we left the gifts we had brought for the clan, we loaded their gifts for us into the car, and we headed back to South Carolina.

Of course, the interruptions that disrupt what we’ve carefully planned don’t always come as fatal errors. Sometimes our agendas are altered by surprising and delightful opportunities. That might mean receiving tickets for a game at the last minute when a friend is suddenly unable to go; it might mean the offer of a new position in the company. Whether by tragedy or opportunity, the reality remains the same. Our well ordered lists and carefully crafted schedules are ever vulnerable to something beyond us. We do well to hold our plans loosely.

This is the counsel James gives in his letter to the Jerusalem church. James urges his congregation to live with constant humble awareness of the “something beyond” their plans and goals and ambitions. He calls them, in the midst of their plans, to deal with God.

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 16 As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

Three quick observations:
1. Making plans isn’t the problem. The text says nothing to discourage well made plans for ordinary affairs like business and making money.

2. Even when we plan well, we have no idea what will happen tomorrow. Our life is short and so is our reach.

3. Therefore, the way to plan is to hold all things subject to the work and will of God. Go ahead, plan your work and work your plan. But hold those plans loosely.

What appears to us as a fatal error may in fact be the work of divine guidance and providence. More on this later.