Set Your Eyes Higher - a 5 Day Planናሙና

Planning vacations for a luxury travel company has been my day job for the past few years. I work hard to curate the best vacation experience for visitors who come to my town. As a local, I have a pretty good sense of the new hot spots and the best locations for photo ops. I know which restaurants have great food and service. I love using my expertise to help people make amazing memories with their loved ones.

Recently, one of my clients sent me a long email of places they wanted to see during their vacation, sourced from random websites. The list included far-flung spots, many of them an hour (or more!) from their accommodations. Almost none of them were on my list of tried-and-true recommendations, most of which were just minutes away.

Working with this client was challenging. Not only were they resistant to my professional expertise, but they wanted me to magically become a local expert for other places where I did not live. I tried to convince them that their initial ideas weren’t best suited for their vacation goals, and in the end, I did my best to honor their requests and research good recommendations for their desired day trips. But in the end, their vacation suffered. They complained that they did not experience enough of the local culture, and that they were tired of driving (insert me, eye twitching).

Unfortunately, this client’s arrogance cost them. If only they had understood that my lived experience would help them more than their internet searches, they might have had an amazing vacation full of “locals-only” experiences and remember-forever moments right outside their door. A drop of humility might’ve given them hours of joy back into their vacation.

If we want to be wise, we must learn to hold our conclusions with open hands before the Lord.

Holding our conclusions loosely simply means that we take our conclusions to God, first through prayer and connection to Christ and then through a humble effort to empathize, learn, and research. Jesus is the best at nurturing compassion, kindness, gentleness, and honesty in us when we bring Him into the process.

Prayer

God, I want to move through the world with humility, remembering that I may not know all the answers. Help me set my eyes on Your perfect wisdom and the leading of Your Spirit. Amen.