Plans

The Lord saw that humanity had become thoroughly evil on the earth and that every idea their minds thought up was always completely evil.

To people belong the plans of the heart, but the answer of the tongue comes from the Lord.
All the ways of people are pure in their eyes, but the Lord tests the motives.
Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.

People plan their path, but the Lord secures their steps.

Many plans are in a person’s mind, but the Lord’s purpose will succeed.

Plans are firmed up by advice; wage wars with good guidance.

The plans of the diligent end up in profit, but those who hurry end up with loss.

My plans aren’t your plans, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my plans than your plans.

I know the plans I have in mind for you, declares the Lord; they are plans for peace, not disaster, to give you a future filled with hope.

 -Genesis 6:5, Provers 16:1-3,  19:21, 20:18, 21:5, Isaiah 55:8-9, Jeremiah 29:11

What are your plans?  Is it Christian to have plans?  Is it right so say, "I want God's plan"?  What if you don't know God's plan for you?  Is the phrase, "fail to plan, plan to fail", Biblical?

The Biblical idea of plans is the idea of thoughts, design or devising.  It has to do with personal creativity.  You are a designer and deviser.  You design and devise your plan, for good or for bad.  Humans, made in God's image, are creators.  We have the privilege of creating babies, and we also have the ability and responsibility to make plans and carry out those plans.

But what is the right plan?  To plan is to be human.  You might not have big plans, but you plan.  You plan on going to church or the grocery store.  That's a plan.  You also plan your day, even if you don't think it is planed.  Being spontaneous is a plan and just doing what is easiest is also a plan.  Failure is a plan.  The saying goes, "fail to plan, plan to fail."

The Bible assumes we plan, because that is in God's design for all people.  Everybody plans.  So what is your plan?  The victim believes life happens to him or her.  It is true that bad stuff happens, but life is what we do with it.  In spite of this bad stuff, what is your plan?

Planning originates in thoughts and takes place in design.  You think it, you design it, you build it, and you live in it or you live with it.  We are all creators or inventors.  We all have this in common with famous people like Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and thousands of other inventors, composers, designers, and innovators.  

People who rescued Jewish people in the holocaust, for example, were average people who innovated plans to save other human beings from evil.  The same kind of saving plans go on to this very day.

We love the fact that God has a plan for us as individuals as is written in Jeremiah, "I know the plans I have for you".  So we want to know God's plan for us and get it.  But what if God's plan is the design of you in Christ?  Yes, God's plan is for you and us all to be Christlike.  But, each of us and designed a little different and express show forth Christ in different ways.  That is God's plan or design, that he put in you.  

Discovering God's plan is discovering God's design of you.  God created and redeemed you and me to be innovative expressions in the earth.  It starts with design, discovering God's design in us.  It then percolates in our thoughts.  We need purified hearts and minds.  We trust God in our heart and do not trust our intellect (Proverbs 3:5).  

Plans are birthed in our hearts and we need to think in our hearts, which does not mean we have it figured out.  The heart's thoughts are rooted in love for and faith in God.  We don't understand God's ways or plans, but we trust God.

Plans are shaped and devised with the help of others.  Receiving counsel is Biblical.  Get a mentor, a counselor, or a coach.  Get another one if the first one is not a fit or have several to get diverse perspectives and let God sort it out with you.  Many times in my life, I have have had at least two mentors, who even questioned each others advice.  That is actually a good thing.  One person never has it all, except for Jesus.