Start By Planning
Continuing from the last edition, we consider the importance of planning as we start our small steps to achieve giant outcomes. Thoughts alone do not get things done. Your thoughts must be processed into a plan; a plan must be documented and put into action (Proverbs 23:7).
God will not do for you what you are meant to do for yourself. When David was going to bring down Goliath, even though he fought in the name of the Lord, he had a plan and strategy for victory. There is nothing that God has asked you to do, that He has not already given you the ability for.
Planning is huge part of the strategy for progress. Where there is no plan, there is no future. It takes planning to execute ideas and to systematically work out your intentions. Planning requires wisdom, and good understanding of your desired Goals. Life will have no meaning without definite goals guiding and motivating your actions.
The future is reserved for planners. You do not wait for your future; you embrace it through planning.
- Planning means to Strategize: You need a programme for progress. You cannot afford to drift through life. God planned the world before He created it! An unplanned life is bound to be a ruined life. We need planning as much as we need prayer. Many are praying year on year, but they have no plans. It is said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.God has thoughts and plans for me. He planned the firmament and the vegetation and despite all Satan has been doing, he has never succeeded in messing up the creation. There must first be a mental progress before physical progress because what you cannot grasp mentally you cannot grip physically.
- Planning means to Devise: It is Gods’ covenant with you to direct your ways, but He can only use your plans to do so (Proverbs 16:9). If you have no plans, you will lack divine direction. How much you are given to planning determines how much direction you will enjoy from God.God does not deal with idle minds, nor does He direct without plan. God gave you a heart, a renewed mind so you can strategize and devise plans. He created you after His own image, so you can reason with Him (Isaiah 1:18).
Planning is the combination of thinking and writing. By thinking, you search out what to do and by writing, you arrest your thoughts. When you write, your plans are documented as reference points of action and focus. Habakkuk 2:2 says write the vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.
- Planning means to Order: Prophet Elisha on Mount Carmel showed us that approaching warfare requires order (1 King 18:31-38). A life that is in order is better suited to handle pressures of life. The devil thrives wherever there is disorder. Everything God did at creation reveals the culture of heaven – orderliness. The Stars, the Moon, and the Sun, have been put there for millions of years yet there has been no clash. Gods’ first Order is illumination. Information will bring order into your life. You can never rise above the level of your knowledge. The more you know, the more you know what you didn’t know. It is the truth that you know that can set you free. Knowledge reveals depth of ignorance. Wisdom is the foundation of your planning.
- Planning means Setting Priorities: For which of you intending to build a tower will not sit down first – Luke 14:28. Jesus was not suggesting idleness here, but a conscious effort to sit down and have a conversation with your inner self about going forward on this or not. Your rising begins with your sitting. Every step taken must be calculated. If you run ahead of yourself, you will run out of gas and you will become the joke.Good intention is not good enough. Priority setting means plotting your line of action in phases; determining the things to be done now, next, and later. It means spreading out the objectives, to avoid confusion. Everything and everyone in your life cannot be first place. Setting priority allows for focus. God created us for focus!
In the process of planning, you need to sit down, count the cost, get the facts, think, and document the plan! May God go before you and make your way straight. In Jesus name.