If I gave you 60 seconds to tell me which is better, a paper planner or a digital one, I bet you could do it without hesitation. “Writing it down helps me sort out my thoughts.” “Digital saves money.” “I love the design of paper planners.” “I can set a reminder in a digital one.” We conduct research to find the perfect notebook or app. Yes, we plan how we want to plan.
Planning is a good thing and the Bible is not silent on the topic.
Proverbs 16:3, “Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established.”
Isaiah 32:8, “But he who is noble plans noble things, and on noble things he stands.”
Luke 14:28, “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?”
However, Scripture does not hail planning as a virtue so much as instructing us to keep our plans in their proper context. In James 4:13-15 we read:
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
Note that planning is not the enemy. We are not instructed to live by the seat of our pants, but it is a matter of perspective. At the outset life is brief and, what’s more, we don’t know what is in store on any given day. In addition, our life’s timepiece is not governed by any earthly status.
Psalm 62:9, “Those of low estate are but a breath; those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath.”
Acknowledging the brevity and uncertainty of life need not lead to despair. It is a tool that facilitates reflection and, as a result, can positively affect our planning process. Ask yourself if:
1) You are intentionally including God in your plans.
Have I asked for God’s wisdom? Would this plan please Him? Would an objective observer see God’s fingerprints on this plan?
2) You are prepared to acknowledge that, regardless of the amount of planning, you are not in control.
Am I prepared to praise God when my plans go terribly wrong? Am I prepared to show patience and kindness to others when no one else recognizes my effort or cooperates with my plan?
“Life is short” is a tired cliché, but worse, it is incomplete. Better would be to include the sentiments of the psalmist:
O LORD, make me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you. (Psalm 39:4, 7).
Life is short so measure your days and hope in God! Keep your plans in proper context by making Him integral to all of them at the front, and at the end acknowledge His sovereignty with, “If the Lord wills.”