(Excerpts
from https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/a-new-years-plea-plan
in italics.)
Nothing but
the simplest impulses get accomplished without some forethought, which we call
a plan. As the Executive Director
for Care Net, planning is very important to the future growth of this
ministry. It is very possible to go
through life with little time devoted to the future, but this is not God’s
way. However, reconciling that with being
open enough to God’s leading to accept closing doors and adjusting course will
always be the challenge.
Proverbs 14:15 says “The simple believes
everything, but the prudent looks where he is going.” He considers the days to come and what they may
bring. Then the “prudent” thinks about
how best to prepare for them and use them to accomplish His purposes. The
difference between planning and not planning is whether you look where you are
going in the future, or whether you focus all your attention on the immediate
right in front of you.
Over the last month, I’ve been examining the
process God has used for Care Net and what we’ve learned in studying His ways
over the past 16 years.
When we pray, then plan, THEN move ahead doing
just the next step (since that’s all we may know) God does big things! Several years ago, we felt He was leading us
to begin offering STI testing here at Care Net in addition to pregnancy testing. Each week, I’d write down the next step to
seeing that goal accomplished. Weekly,
the list would change. “Call Health
Dept.” “Check possible lab” etc. At one point, the realization came that when
one door closed, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, we simply went to the
next, and so on. It was like an
investigative journey or a Holy Spirit dance.
We applied the same method to adding a new Center
in Martin County. First, we prayed and
believed the way clear and then listed the plan of what to do. Each week found something else on the week’s
plan moving us in that direction. One
big hurdle that we had no means of jumping was the Board’s determination (with
my full support) that we needed a $50,000 buffer in bank before beginning. A letter went out and the funds came in.
We added the Student Services department to the
ministry of Care Net in a similar fashion.
Care Net’s Administrative Center that we moved
into this past fall 2017, was approached in exactly the same way. We searched for the perfect location for
years, with one location after another checked off as not the right one. First,
the knowledge that purchasing a building was His plan, then one step, a door
closed, one step, another door closed, until another would finally open. I’d love to say it was easy but it was not—it
was painstaking, toiling, frustrating, but amazing. PEACE
has always been the guiding beacon.
God has done this for years, and I have finally
realized He frequently leads all of us this way as we search to find the
pathways He has for us. But the point is
to search…and take a step…if you want to find the path! Yes, go there…no, not there…adjust course...recalculating…yes,
there! For years, my motto has been “do the next right thing.” Perhaps it should be DO the next right thing.
Start moving so that He can adjust or confirm the next step!
This is the Divine Dance of the Holy Spirit and it
is the truest intimacy.
Careful
planning is part of what makes a person wise and productive. Not to plan is considered foolish and
dangerous. This is true even though the
Proverbs teach that we do not know what the future may bring. “A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord
directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9) The fact that the Lord is ultimately in
control of the future does not mean we shouldn’t plan. It means we should commit our work to the
Lord and trust Him to establish our plans according to His loving
purposes.
Paul gave many examples of this in the
epistles. He carefully planned and then
God would change those plans. Frequently, He put Paul in prison where he would
write letters instead of going to the places he wanted to be. But, in that process we received letters that
make up a LOT of the New Testament. He (Paul) had a general guideline: he wanted to preach where no one had preached
before. Then he developed a specific
plan from this guideline….what makes this especially significant is that as far
as we know those plans frequently fell through.
He was arrested in Jerusalem. He
went to Rome as a prisoner….It’s just like we saw in the Proverbs. God is the one who finally makes the
future. But we plan nevertheless. God uses our planning even if he aborts it and
replaces it with something else.
Planning is crucial in Christian living and
Christian ministry—even when God overrules it, and maybe especially when God
overrules it. That simply means He is
doing a new thing along the way. His
creativity in teaching us new things as He is about the work of the Kingdom is
a source of amazement to me. If He
corrects direction along the way, that is simply His leading in the Divine
Dance.
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