Have you made plans for the future? Of course you have. Think about it. All plans are for the future whether it’s for later today, a month from now, or many years down the road. Some of us are better at planning than others but everybody at some level or another makes plans.
The Bible promotes the idea of making plans and provides us with perspectives that help us have the right attitude as we make plans and as we execute those plans. That will be the focus for this week’s episode of Sunday Spice. At least that’s the plan.
There seems to be built into ants an innate ability to plan and then execute the plan. Proverbs 6 says: “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.”
The wisdom built into the ant species is one way God points out to all of us the importance of doing things like preparing for the future and making plans to do so. In this scenario, it includes the prudence to gather from the abundance that the summer harvest provides so that there is enough food until the following year.
It is vital to remember that as important as planning is to any project or dream, we may need to understand that plans are not always foolproof. Proverbs 15 says that: “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.”
Plans need a foundation of understanding and wisdom; and plans also need counsel. Input from others, who are involved or not involved in the project, can lend important perspectives. This may require that plans be tweaked, adjusted, or even scrubbed. We should always be willing to go back to the drawing board to rethink and redesign our plans. The process of planning and adjusting those plans along the way is more important than the initial plans themselves. So, consider all plans a work in progress.
Jennifer Benson Schuldt told a story about an experience she had. She was in a new community center where she began an exploration of a library located on the bottom floor. She soon experienced a crash that shook the room. The crash came from overhead. A few minutes passed and it happened again, and then yet again. The librarian on duty, visibly agitated, explained to those puzzled by the disturbances that a weight-lifting room was located directly above the library. The noise resulted every time someone dropped a weight on the floor. This state of the art facility was planned by professional architects and designers but they had forgotten to locate the library away from the potential noises typical to a weight room.
This was a plan that needed some more counsel.
Another verse with this idea is Proverbs 20: “Plans are established by counsel; by wise guidance wage war.” A war is where we can find an immense amount of plans. But it is where an immense amount of counsel is also needed before the war, or before any given battle, is initiated.
Sometimes we make plans with so much focus and dedication that that is all we know; that is all we can see. We push the plans forward and like I just mentioned we forget to get counsel and input from others.
It speaks of good stewardship and are the first steps of responsibility and good management. But this verse from Proverbs 16 helps us with one more perspective that is fundamental to our hope of accomplishing our plans: “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” This verse does not take away the idea of making plans; it even encourages it. What this verse does is let the Lord into the plans.
Yes. Make plans but don’t forget that as you take the steps forward to complete the plans that your steps are directed by the Lord. This assumes that your plans just might not go as you planned and your plans, therefore, need a modification. When the Lord is directing your steps, who would want it any other way?
Proverbs 21 says: “The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.”
It is possible that plans can be made and there is not enough motivation or initiative to implement the plan. After all, let’s admit, some plans demand a great deal of effort. In those moments of realizing what it will take to accomplish the plans means it might challenge many of us. And procrastination might set in. If this happens, we all know that such plans will go nowhere.
So, if we make plans, we are reminded of the parable Jesus taught in Luke 14: “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’”
I’m Tammy Reneé, and this is Sunday Spice. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed are the people who take refuge in Him!
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