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by John Piper
Planning for Physical Necessities
Suppose the thought enters your mind that you want to build a house. You sit
down and make a list of all the materials you think you will need. Then you
order them to be delivered to the lot where you will build. Everything is piled
in the center of the lot, and the next day the bulldozer comes to excavate the
basement and everything is in the way. It's all just where he has to dig.
Why?
A failure to plan.
Without some rudimentary planning you probably won't have anything to eat when
you get up in the morning. And without some detailed planning no one can build a
house, let alone a skyscraper or shopping mall or city. If producing shelter and
food and clothing and transportation is valuable, then planning is valuable.
Nothing but the simplest impulses gets accomplished without some forethought
which we call a plan.
Planning for Spiritual Necessities
All of us know this and practice it in relation to the basic physical
necessities of life. We take steps to see that we have enough to eat and clothes
to keep us warm. But do we take our spiritual needs that seriously? Do we apply
the same earnestness in planning to maximize our ministry as we do in planning
to make a living?
What I would like to do here is to try to persuade you to set aside time each
week in the coming year to plan—and specifically to plan your life of prayer and
devotion and ministry. The bulldozer of God's Spirit often arrives at the scene
of our heart ready to begin some great work of building, and he finds that due
to poor planning there are piles of disordered things in his way. We're not
ready for him.
The way I hope to motivate you to do this is to give four examples of planning
in the Bible. First, some illustrations from the Proverbs; second, the planning
of the apostle Paul; third, the planning of God; and fourth, the planning of
Jesus.
Illustrations from Proverbs
Proverbs 6:6–7, "Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways and be wise.
Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her food in summer,
and gathers her sustenance in harvest."
The ant is an example not only because it works so hard, but also because it
plans ahead. It takes thought in summer that there will be need in winter, and
this forethought provides its needs in winter.
Proverbs 14:15, "The simple believes everything, but the prudent looks where he
is going."
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. If you are not a planner, then you will be at the mercy
of others who try to give you counsel about how to act now so as to be happy in
the future.
So "the simple believes everything, but the prudent looks where he is going." He
considers the days to come and what they are bringing and thinks about how best
to prepare for them and use them to accomplish his purposes.
Proverbs 15:22, "Without counsel plans go wrong, but with many advisers they
succeed."
Here the wisdom of planning is taken for granted, and the writer simply gives us
advice for how to make plans that succeed. He says, Don't be so independent that
you think yourself above counsel. Read the wisdom of others who have gone before
you. Talk to experienced and wise people. Watch the way others do things and
learn from their mistakes and successes.
Proverbs 16:3, "Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be
established."
Again planning is taken for granted and the issue is: How can you plan in such a
way that what you produce will have abiding value and not just pass away
overnight? Answer: Commit it to the Lord. That is, always seek the Lord's
guidance and strength in your planning. Trust his wisdom and not your own. Then
your plans will bear fruit that stays.
Proverbs 24:27, "Prepare your work outside, get everything ready for you in the
field; and after that build your house."
This probably means that it is important to be able to support yourself by the
productivity of the field before you establish your own household. Perhaps we
would say to a young person today: get a job before you get married. Or at least
plan how you are going to support the new household you are establishing.
Proverbs 31:15–16, "She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her
household and tasks for her maidens. She considers a field and buys it; with the
fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard."
Here the model homemaker is a model planner in two ways. She gets up early and
assigns tasks to her maids. You cannot assign tasks to your maids if you have no
plan about what you would like to be accomplished that day. And she considers a
field and buys it. What does she consider? She considers how it will fit into
the plan of the household.
Conclusion from the Proverbs:
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.
The Planning of the Apostle Paul
We will take just one example of Paul's planning from the many that we could
take from Acts and from his letters. Romans 15:20–28,
I make it my ambition (i.e., my plan) to preach the gospel, not where Christ has
already been named, lest I build on another man's foundation . . . But now,
since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have
longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to
Spain, and to be sped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your
company for a little. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem with aid for
the saints . . . When therefore I have completed this, and have delivered to
them what has been raised, I shall go on by way of you to Spain.
Here is a typical example of how the apostle Paul carried out his mission. And I
think we should learn from him that planning is essential to a productive
ministry. And I mean your personal ministry as well as the more complex organism
of church ministries. Paul was the greatest church planter who ever lived. He
accomplished more in his life for the spread of the reign of Christ than any
other person. So I think we would do well to take seriously his method. Part of
his method was his planning.
He had a general guideline: he wanted to preach where no one had preached
before. Then he developed a specific plan from this guideline: he would take the
gift to Jerusalem; then he would go to Rome to establish a western base, from
which he would then go to Spain.
What makes this especially significant is that as far as we know the plan fell
through. He was arrested in Jerusalem. He went to Rome as a prisoner and
probably never got to Spain. 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.
For example, if Paul had not planned to use Rome as a base of operations for a
trip to Spain, he probably never would have written the greatest letter the
world has ever known—the epistle to the Romans. Planning is crucial in Christian
living and Christian ministry—even when God overrules our planning.
The Planning of God
The ultimate reason for planning is that God is a God who plans and we are
created in his image to exercise dominion in the earth under his lordship.
I don't think it is even possible to conceive a God who does not act according
to his own eternal planning—that is, a God who has knee jerk responses to
stimuli rather than deliberate actions that fit into a wise purpose.
Isaiah 46:9–10, "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none
like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not
yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my
purpose.'"
Ephesians 1:9–10, "God has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the
mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a
plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and
on earth."
Acts 2:23, "This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan and
foreknowledge of God."
Since God is a God who does all things according to plan it befits us to
approach the most important things of life with forethought and plan, not
haphazardly.
The Planning of Jesus
Jesus had a mission to accomplish, and he finished it with forethought and
planning.
When his mother urged him to do a miracle at the wedding in Cana, he said, "My
hour is not yet come" (John 2:4). There was a planned and appointed hour for the
revelation of his power. He would stay with the plan. Luke 9:51 says, "When the
days grew near for him to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem."
He knew that the plan meant death in Jerusalem and he didn't shrink back from
the plan.
But he wasn't driven against his will. The Father's plan was his plan. He said
in John 10:18, "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own
accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this
charge I have received from my Father."
Conclusion:
Very specifically my plea to you this new year is that you take time to plan the
most important things in your life.
Plan for the Most Important Things in Your Life
Plan how you are going to spend time with your spouse to deepen and strengthen
the relationship. Plan how you are going to spend time playing with and teaching
the children. Plan how you are going to get the amount of exercise you need to
stay healthy. Plan how you are going to get enough sleep. Plan how much you
should eat and how you are going to limit yourself. Plan your vacation so that
it really gives rest and spiritual renewal.
And most important, plan how prayer and meditation on the Word are going to be
significant parts of your life. Without a plan these most important things
always get pushed aside by urgent pressures.
Make Planning a Regular Part of Your Life
But it won't work just to plan something tonight or tomorrow. Planning must be a
regular part of your life. I expect that the pastoral staff at Bethlehem will
take a full day each month away from the church office just to pray and plan
their ministry. This is in addition to the time I expect we are all taking each
week to plan our week's work.
So my plea to you is that you set aside time each week to plan, especially to
plan your life of prayer and Bible study. For example, since Sunday is the first
day of the week (not the last day of the weekend!) and belongs to the Lord, take
ten or fifteen minutes each Sunday and think through when you will pray and what
you will study that week. Give some thought how God might want to use you that
week in a special way. Plan the letters you need to write, the Bible verses you
want to teach your children, the visit you want to make, the book you want to
read, the neighbor you want to talk to, etc.
The Proverbs teach us to plan. The greatest missionary who ever lived was a
planner. God is a God who does all things according to plan. And Jesus set his
face to go to Jerusalem because of the most loving plan ever devised.
He planned for our joy; we ought to plan for his glory.
©2012 Desiring God Foundation. Used by Permission. Website: desiringGod.org
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