Hope is NOT a Plan

Commit to the Lord everything you do.
Then your plans will succeed.

Proverbs 16:3

I started learning the guitar a year and a half ago. Since then I have incorporated playing into my quiet time with the Lord. I began going to our church early in the morning several times a week to sing and pray. I used the prayer room, which was being refurbished. On the unpainted walls, people had written their favorite bible verses and I often took inspiration from the verses I saw there.

On New Year's Eve 2009 I had returned to the church to pick up my guitar. On my way out I felt like God told me to go into the prayer room and read the verses printed on the wall between the door and the window. I was already running late, and almost ignored the prompting, but I went back inside to look up the verses anyway.

One was Proverbs 16:3 "Commit to the Lord every thing you do, and your plans will succeed." The other was "For you have not received a spirit of fear or of bondage, but a spirit of adoption" Romans 8:15-16.

"Praise the Lord!" I said. I'd take that. Those verses gave me great hope. I set the words to a simple tune, and sang it whenever I felt hopeless. It encouraged me throughout the year. I tried to make sure I was committing whatever I did to him.

After a year had passed, however, our situation hadn't changed much. We were still just treading water, barely keeping afloat. And there were sharks in the water.

Then it hit me. I HAD NO PLAN FOR GOD TO BLESS AND MAKE SUCCEED!!!! I had been going along with no direction, just taking clients and projects as they came my way. I wasn't marketing myself!

As a marketing consultant I've helped many clients plan how to attract customers through various marketing techniques. But I realized I've not done much for my own business.

I even put it in terms of an equation:

M x G = R

Where M = My Plans, G = God's Power, and R = Results.

Notice that it's a multiplication problem, and in multiplication, if any of the factors equal zero, the whole equation equals zero. So if M = 0, then R = 0 too. Without a plan, there's nothing to succeed.

So this is my challenge to you and to me: Get a plan. Develop it right away. Make it specific. Put goals, milestones and dates in it. Estimate what it will cost you, and allocate funds for it. Then, commit it to God and put it to work. Let's see what God will do!

Brett