You Have to Have a Plan to Have a Change of Plan! Part One

This has been a saying of mine for many years, but the real secret is having the grace to allow God to change our plans for His.

After all He says in Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future".

The problem is that He does not always pass on this information to us!

And I am sure he does expect us to make our own plans because in Luke 14 He says " “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?"

So He obviously wants us to be intentional about what we do and not just go with the flow.

So we go about our lives making our plans....

About 3 years ago I had some plans, good plans, well thought out plans, God honouring plans. So, you would think that Father God would look down on me and smile and bless my little plans, all so carefully worked out with Him in mind. You'd think.......

Good job I've read the whole book and know that it doesn't always work like that!

Isaiah 55:8-9 says  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth,  so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Not that there was anything wrong with my thoughts, its simply that He is God and I am not!

My plans were nice and comfy and made me feel good about how I was doing in the Christian life....

For instance, I looked at how I had been reading the bible over the almost nine years I had been a Christian.

Not too shabby I thought to myself, as well as reading here there and everywhere thoughout the bible I had read it through several times using different plans and methods.

Ticking off a Printed Purple Plan (I love purple)
Straight Through From Cover to Cover
Following a Chronilogical Plan
Using a Perpetual Plan
Printing off a Mini Sized Plan
Marking off in My Bible itself.

I was quite pleased with myself....

Do you see the problem?

Did you catch a glimpse of the Pharisee raising its little head there?

Sadly I didn't spot it.......

And so I carried on with my plans.

Over the coming 3 years  I would follow the Victory Reading Plan (which not only covers the bible, but which goes over certain bits twice). It is a great plan and I would highly recommend it.

It has three columns and I was going to use each column in a different way each year for three years.

1 Read with my son
2 Read and meditate on
3 Read and study themes

By the end of these three years I would be fifty and my son sixteen.

I would have read through the whole bible with my son and we would have discussed it together.

I would have completed what I refer to as my colouring in bible - the one I use for highlighting different themes.

I would have completed what I call my mirror bible - the one I use to meditate on the word, underlining verses to use for prayer in tuquoise, instructions in purple, special women's verses in pink and adding a heart to special verses God has given to me.

See I told you great plans, godly plans. God's plans??? Apparently not!

You see my Father knows my heart and He knew that I did not want to be like one of the Phasisees around the table.

If you want to know what he did about it read part two....

Relationship Building....

 

August and February are the months I review my relationship goals. I chose these months because that is when I celebrate the Anniversary of meeting my husband and our wedding Anniversary.

If at all possible I my husband and I like to get away for a few days just to be together and during this time we talk over memories of our times together. These memories make a wonderful platform on which to build plans for the future.

It is a great time for me to think about all the things my husband does for me and how we make each other better people and think of things (even little ones) which I can do to make him happier and more content.



As well as my relationship with my husband I also think about how I can build strong ties with other family members and old friends.

It is so easy to let things slide when things are busy and relationships don't build themselves they take work.

This is even more true with old friends who we mean to keep in touch with. So one of the things I did before going away was to arrange a day out with a good friend to look forward to in September.

 

As well as building old relationships I feel it is time to make some new friends too as I love mixing with people, but these days I see very few as much of my time is spent at home looking after my son.

So before going away I also made an appointment to see the practice nurse at my GP's. The doctor recently told me that there was a new scheme which would refer patients to a slimming club and if I went to see the nurse she could do that for me.

I thought it would be a great idea as it would help me with my weight loss journey and also give me the opportunity to meet some new people. People with whom I already have a common interest.

 

I am very blessed .... I have a lot to look forward to.