Plan of Life

By Ruth Pakaluk

Having a ‘plan of life’ means having a schedule or a system for working prayer and other aspects of the spiritual life into your daily routine.  

Do we really need a plan of life? 

Many people adhere to the false notion that prayer should always and only be spontaneous.  Now, spontaneous prayer is, of course, a good thing, and we should all aspire to live a life characterized by constant, heartfelt prayer.  But the likelihood that one will attain to that level of prayer without first adhering to some system of regular, scheduled prayer is just about nil.

It is said that nothing of value can be gained without effort.  That is not exactly true.  The most basic and most valuable things in this life come to us as a gift—life itself comes from God through our parents.  Our talents or strengths are usually inherited.   Our laws and culture come to us through the efforts and sacrifices of our ancestors.  And—the most excellent gift of all—salvation comes as a gift from God.  But to a large extent, the value of our lives is determined by what we do with the gifts we are given.  

It is at this level—what we do with the gifts we possess—that it is true, nothing of value comes without effort.  We know this is true in the natural realm: no one becomes a great musician on inborn talent alone.  Everyone who wants to play an instrument must learn to do so gradually and systematically.  There isn’t going to be a single athlete in Atlanta who got to the Olympics without training.

The same truth applies in the spiritual life.  To draw closer to God, to become more conformed to the mind of Christ, we must make a sustained and systematic effort to allow our lives to be transformed by grace.

As with most things, there’s an up-side and a down-side to this.  How nice it would be if the spiritual life were like winning the lottery—all at once, a complete and radical transformation of one’s life.  But how likely is it that one will win the lottery?  

On the other hand, consider this.  If you apply yourself each day and make a systematic effort to pray, it is guaranteed that you will make progress.  It may be so slow as to seem imperceptible.  But think about how a child learns to play the clarinet.  At first, the sounds are atrocious, squeaky and out of tune.  But if the child practices just a little bit each day, in a couple of years he or she will sound pretty darn good.  The kids who make no progress are the ones who never practice, or who only practice when they feel like it.

Now, God has His ways and, whether you like them or not, you have to go along with them.  In just about every aspect of life, God requires that we make sustained, systematic effort in order to improve.  Why should it be any different in our prayer life?  The person who ‘only prays when he feels like it’ or ‘only when the Spirit moves me’ is going to make about as much progress as the clarinetist who only practices when he feels like it.  Not a pretty prospect.

That’s one way to understand why we need a plan of life.  

How a Plan of Life Helps Us

A plan of life gives us peace of mind.  We all have days when it seems as if everything we do goes wrong: there’s no bread to make school lunches; the car won’t start; you make some phone calls about an upcoming event, only to find that it’s been postponed, and you have to call everybody back with the revised information.  You totally lose it with your husband or one of the kids.  You get to the end of the day and it looks like a total wasteland.  But if part of your plan of life is to get to Mass and say the Rosary, even if those two things were done in a bit of a blur, you can at least say to God: “Well, I did those two things for love of you.”  There are at least two good things you can point to in the day.

Blessed Josemaria likened the plan of life to poles that are planted in the ground in Spain along mountain roads.  In the winter, when the snow is deep, the poles stick out above the snow to show where the road is:  “You must be constant and demanding with yourself in your regular practices of piety, even when you feel tired and arid.  Persevere!  Those moments are like the tall red-painted poles which serve as markers along the mountain roads when there are heavy snowfalls.  They are always there to show where it is safe to go” (Forge, 81).  

We know that, in a sense, nothing we do on our own will accomplish anything in the spiritual life.  But God has promised to honor our faithfulness: “to him who is faithful in small things, much will be given.”  Well, if we persevere in our small way, in spite of everything, then God will reward our efforts by helping us along the way of sanctification, as well as by assisting those intentions we pray for.

Another way in which having a plan of life is helpful is that it shows that our devotion to God is authentic.  Many saints and holy people have written that it is better to persevere in prayer without receiving what are usually called ‘consolations.’  Every now and again, most of us have been lucky enough to experience during or after our prayer an intense feeling of peace or even joy.  Naturally, if this were to happen every single time we prayed, it would be no problem to pray.  In fact, the problem would most likely then become how to make ourselves stop praying and get on with the work we have to do.

God clearly wants us to learn to persevere with our commitment to pray, especially when we really do not feel like doing it.  Every great adult saint has experienced this type of trial.  Every one attests that it is a most powerful time of inward growth.  Now, if you are a religious in a community with a clear rule about what prayers to say and when, it is virtually impossible to avoid going successfully through just such a difficult stretch.  But our vocation is in the lay state; we do not have a rule; and we do not have religious superiors telling us what to do with our spiritual lives.  So if we do not have a plan of life, if we leave our prayer life up to chance, how are we going to reap the benefits of praying when the impulse to do so is absent?

Some people think prayer is a sham if it is done out of habit or merely because one has determined to pray.  Let me read one of my favorite passages from Blessed Josemaria’s writings.  It can be very helpful.  “In any case, if on beginning your meditation you don’t succeed in concentrating your attention so as to be able to talk with God; if you feel dry and your mind seems incapable of expressing a single idea, or your affections remain dull, my advice is that you try to do what I have always tried to do on such occasions: put yourselves in the presence of your Father and tell him this much at least: ‘Lord, I don’t know how to pray.  I can’t think of anything to tell you.’  You can be sure that at that very moment you have already begun to pray” (Friends of God, 145d).

Again, this is similar to our experience in everyday life.  When two young people first fall in love, they seem bent on doing as much as possible for each other.   The great epics and poems of romantic love capture this desire to be tested, to prove one’s love.  Now, where does all this fervor go when it’s time to get up with a teething baby, or be the first one up on Saturday morning to put out the garbage?  But this is when love really shows its true colors.  God gives young people the fervor of falling in love, because otherwise the human race would probably come to an end.  But the love God is really looking for, the love that is true and that counts, is the love of ten thousand mornings of getting up, being cheerful, listening to the kids when they come in from school like a thundering herd of elephants, smiling at the husband when he comes in from work and refraining from rehearsing all the horrors of your day.  It is these countless, repeated acts of self denial that makes love deepen and grow.

The same is true in our relationship with God:  “Every single day, do what you can to know God better, to get acquainted with him, to fall more in love with him each moment, and to think of nothing but of his Love and his glory.   You will carry out this plan, my child, if you never, for any reason whatever, give up your times of prayer, your presence of God, with the aspirations and spiritual communions that set you on fire, your unhurried Holy Mass, and your work, finished off well for him” (Forge, 737).

What should our plan of life be?

There are certain obvious basics: some time for conversation with God about the day-to-day events of your life; the Rosary; and daily Mass is always a good idea, and it can usually be fit into even a busy day.  It’s a good idea to talk to a good confessor or seek spiritual direction to keep yourself on the right track.  Again, think how difficult it would be to make progress playing an instrument or mastering a new sport without the help of someone trained to teach it.