The importance of not knowing

A few years back I spoke to some people that were going to move to a new city to plant a church. They were excited and told me that they had a whole wall full of the planning for this plant, the various stages, checkpoints and so on. A year later they told me that almost nothing in their plan had worked. I could identify with that, because exactly the same thing had happened to me: good plan according to the latest book, and no luck in seeing it realised.

I have come to believe that it can be quite dangerous entering a situation thinking that you know how it should be. Because that very conviction can blind us to the new realities, new opportunities and to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Having the attitude of "I don't know yet" instead forces us to be curious, open and vulnerable, a great place to be if you want to hear from God.

Of course we should not just blunder in without thinking ahead, when we do that we will just do what we've always done, not being open at all. And in some cultures you really need to sit down and think ahead to avoid being fooled by tradition. But at least the western world thinking really likes planning, and tries to master the world through it.

We're in the immersion stage at the moment (yes we are in a stage :-) Which means that we are getting to know, asking questions, being curious, praying prophetically, listening with all kinds of ears that we have. And I am trying very hard to hold fast to this: We don't know yet how God wants to do things.