Making Plans

Making Plans

 

“A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” – Proverbs 16:9

What are your plans today?  We all have them.  We plan to go to work.  We may plan to have lunch with friends.  We plan to go home and have dinner, maybe do a load of laundry.  We plan to go to our children’s school events.  It’s just another day, and before it even begins we’ve filled it with our plans.

We also have long-term plans.  We plan to retire, to spend lots of time at the beach (please, Lord!). We plan to spend long days spoiling the grandchildren who have yet to be born.  We plan to volunteer at the local hospital, and become more active in our church.  We dream of spending our summers sitting on the front porch with a glass of sweet tea, and our winters sitting at a window drinking cocoa and watching the snow fall.  We plan to have enough funds in our retirement accounts to take care of us until we die.

Woody Allen once said “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him about your plans.”  We have such great thoughts towards our futures, yet we don’t control a single minute!  Yet, Proverbs 16:9 says “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”  Our plans are nothing but dreams.  We don’t know what today – or tomorrow – brings.  Only God knows, and for the most part…He’s not telling!

In Luke 12:16-21 Jesus gives the disciples a parable about making plans for ourselves:

“The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully.  And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’  So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’  But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’”

While the rich man had planned for his life here on earth, he had neglected planning for eternity.  Oh, he had big dreams for this life.  He was going to eat, drink and be merry and rest from his labors.  He stored up his wealth in his barns here for retirement.  But he failed to store anything up in Heaven for his eternal retirement.

Today is but a dream, and eternity is sure.  Hebrews 9:27 says that “it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment”. What are your plans for judgment day?  Have you made any?  Are you prepared for it?  While we fill our day with our plans, let us not neglect eternity.  Our clean houses, steady jobs, bank accounts, social standing, and everything we have here will one day be of no value.  We will leave it all behind.  We will stand before Almighty God and give an answer for our days.