Stay In Tune: Make Your Plans Line Up With God’s

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in You <Lord>.  Show me the way I should go, for to You I entrust my life.’ (Psalm 143:8) 

When we talk about planning, often Jeremiah 29:11 comes up; ‘<God says,> “For I have plans for you, not to harm you but to give you hope and a future.’”.  But God knows how we like to try to come up with our own plans; ‘In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. (Proverbs 16:9). 

For us, we have to ensure our plans align with God’s plans.  Often, we see a shiny object within reach (a new job, a career change with a pay increase or better location, retirement) and we devise a plan to make it happen.  It is not a bad thing to seek improving your situation or to grow in your career field or to change for personal satisfaction. 

The problem occurs when we don’t include God in our planning.  When we don’t invite God to our planning sessions, we often find that our plans fall apart and end up either treading water or in a worse situation than before. 

Sometimes our plans are flawless in execution and everything we planned for fall into place, everything goes perfectly – but we find we are miserable as we are no longer in God’s path for us.  (Two things come to mind – ‘Be careful what you ask for, you may just get it’ and ‘the grass is always greener over the septic tank’.) 

Think of a trumpeter, in a symphony orchestra, playing Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’, suddenly in the middle of production standing up and playing a song from Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass or Louis Armstrong.  Though the trumpeter may be perfect in the playing of his song choice, it would sound terrible with the others in their playing Vivaldi.  He would be chased off by the conductor, swatting him with his baton as they exited the stage.

We must bring God into our plans in order for them to succeed.  Success is defined by God, not by us.  Success for Paul was his eventual imprisonment and execution, I believe if Paul defined success on his own, it would probably be more along the lines of continued travel to evangelize.  (I don’t think anyone wakes up and says, ‘You know, I want to be thrown into prison and then get beheaded!  Let me get the ball rolling so my head will.’)  But Paul would not have had the impact on Christianity that he did if he did not include God into his plans.

Now, Paul is an extreme example.  God does not normally plan for His people to go to that length, although there are Christians who do end up as martyrs for God’s purpose.  Most Christians life what others consider a normal life, but nevertheless we need to ensure we follow God to be in His will. 

It is not always clear on what God’s plan is, what our Gift is, what He specifically wants us to do.  It is important to pray, study Scripture, and keep in tune with the Lord to get what He wants from us.  God’s initiatives come in various ways. 

One message for my Life Group, to ‘Be Prepared’, came to me from a thought encouraged from the Holy Spirit, then verified through a DVD from the late Phil Robertson, then Worldview conference from Bill Jack, and the subsequent sermon series our pastor gave that hit upon topics we were discussing in class.  If I wasn’t in tune, I would have missed it.   

Plan with God, enable your ability to tune into God through prayer and study, and His criteria for success is best for all.