THE NEED FOR PERSONAL PLANNING
If you forget all that happened in the past, if becomes a challenge planning properly for the future. The future does not always depend on the past but it must learn from it. The future is bright when you have enough energy to face what is ahead of you. Moving into the unknown has been faced with anxiety and concern due to the uncertainty that surrounds it. Taking time to plan carefully removes some of the fog that encircles what is coming.
Each year is an opportunity to BECOME BETTER and PERFORM BETTER. The difference is PERSONAL PLANNING. Planning ahead of starting a new year can lead to a more fulfilled life, better performance, and higher levels of productivity. When you do not plan, you will find yourself thinking more than necessary. Your mind will overwork as you will be trying to remember everything because nothing is written down. But you will feel more organized and at rest when things are well written down, not matter how unrefined it may seem. Every area of our lives require careful planning.
God is a master planner. The entire plan of salvation was a long term plan that He carefully executed over several years and fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ and His ultimate death on the cross. The deliverance of the children of Israel was a great plan that was carefully executed. The precision of the exodus and the detailed plans that characterised the night of their departure from Egypt are simply admirable. You read how He revealed the plan for preparing for a long season of drought to Joseph and how Joseph carried it out with precision and great leadership. Plans are brilliant and planning is a noble activity. Each individual life must be carefully planned. Families need a plan and institutions plan on a continual basis. Leaders have a duty to plan with their team to come out with collective decisions.
Many churches leave planning to the last minute. You will find pastors asking their congregants and worshippers to come up with how they want the coming year to be for them on 31st December night. At that time, it is very late, if not too late. Doing annual budgets are very useful for every church. But that should not be the only planning that is carried out. The budget is to be based on the plan as it constitutes the costs of the different components of the plan that has been put together. We need not reduce planning to simply having a budget as a church. And families need to plan together for the coming year, and do so weeks before the end of the year.
Let us focus on personal level planning. To do that effectively, you look back, look forward and do the details.
LOOK BACK
Human beings are very forgetful. At the same time, we vividly remember the negative things that have happened to us. When we take time to reflect on the good things that have taken place in our lives over a period of time, you will find how many things there are to thank God for. We also need to remember the things that did not go well and allow our hearts to be healed. A covered wound does not heal very well. Psalm 103:1-2 says “Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits”.
The Israelites often forgot the goodness of God and His acts of deliverance. Psalm 106:13 says “They soon forgot His works; they did not wait for His counsel”. I kept asking myself, ‘how do you forget that you walked through the Red Sea on dry ground, or that you are manna, food that came from heaven on a daily basis. If it were not for the power and presence of God, they would all have perished of hunger and thirst in the wilderness. Instead of asking Moses nicely, they were complaining. And we also complain a lot these days, forgetting what the Lord has done for us.
We look back, not to stay in the past, but so we can learn from it; so we can forgive those who have hurt us; so we can let go what was painful. Remember things that did not go so well and those that are painful and hand them over to the Lord. Do not hold on to it. When you are free of them, your hands are also free to receive blessings from the Lord.
LOOK FORWARD
We remember so we can forget. If you do not call it to mind, it can go and hide in the subconscious and be affecting your life and conduct. Remembering helps us to face it deal with it.
God wants us to look forward. He has plans for us that no one knows about (see Jer. 29:11). We are told in Isaiah 43:18-19 that “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it?” Looking forward keeps us healthy and strong. You cannot keep yourself in the past. If a particular year did not go so well with you, there is HOPE for the future. Look forward and anticipate better things ahead. No need to get stuck with the past and fixated on what did not go well. Let go of them and move forward. March forward in faith and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
In looking forward, outline your key goals for the coming year. Then do the details. Your goals are your overall plans for the coming year, which includes what you want to achieve, some unfinished business from the current year and how you would want the coming year to be like for you. Have about three to four key goals which form the basis for the rest of your planning. With time, you may want to do your personal strategic framework – your personal vision, mission and values. Your goals are your desired outcomes. For example, you may want growth in finances, stability in marriage, improved interrelationships with loved ones, expanded ministry. There are things that should always feature in our plans such as spiritual growth, sound health and a better relationship with God. After spelling out the goals, do the details and take time to plan every aspect of your life.
I sometimes use an excel file for my planning and use a worksheet for different overall goals. It helps me to come up with the details. The more detailed your plans the better.
DO THE DETAILS
Doing the detailed plan for the coming year takes quite a lot of time and effort. Look out for retreats and planning programs and participate in them. Doing it with others is very helpful. You are taken through a process to systematically plan the different areas of your own life at such programs. It is an opportunity you do not want to miss.
I have organised planning meetings and retreats for the past 6 years. I prepare planning sheets which we go through together. When I pastor a church, I take the whole church through it, with each individual planning their own lives. Several have found it rewarding and served as a guide for them throughout the coming year. I lead teams to do long term plans – five, ten and even 20 years to come. Facilitating entire churches to plan their future and come up with their specific vision have been a delight and an enjoyable experience.
With appropriate prayer sessions and short talks to motivate people and help them understand the need to plan, most people are able to come up with a basic plan for the coming year.
Have a clear spiritual plan. Plan to read a lot of Bible in the coming year. For example, if you read 4 chapters of the Bible a day, which takes about 20 minutes to do, you will finish the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation in about 10 months. If you read 2 chapters a day, you will complete the entire Bible in less than 2 years. Have a plan to consume a lot of Bible. Then plan to pray for sincerely and intensely. More prolonged prayer times are great and you can identify a group of Bible-based believers to join in prayer weekly. Take note of your fellowship life and plan to become transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. The more time you spend with the Lord (alone and in a group), the better a person you become. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18).
Have great family goals and be strategic in connecting with people who can help you grow. Plan your finances, your health, for personal development and for opportunities to also be a blessing to others. Do not spend all your money on yourself; share some with others.
A plan allows you to peep into the future and come up with specific things to pursue. It enables you to spend money more wisely. Make your plans flexible so that God can interfere.
MAKE A LIST
Make a list of the things you will like God to do for you. If God is standing before you and asked what He should do for you in the coming year, what will you say to Him? These are things you cannot accomplish by your own wisdom or strength. You need the intervention of the Lord. Make a careful list and let it become your prayer list in the coming year. The beauty of this list is that you can clearly see it when a particular prayer is answered. And you can tick it off!
PRAY AND CONNECT WITH GOD
Take time to pray and connect strongly with God before the watchnight service. You will not have enough time to do it well at that service which is usually packed with praises, testimonies and great excitement.
STRATEGIC PRAYER TIME
1. Spend time to thank God for all the great things that have happened in your life in the current and past years. “Forget not all His benefits” (Psalm 103:2).
2. Thank the Lord for people who have been a blessing to you in one way or the other. Find an opportunity to appreciate them and let them know they have touched your life. Thankfulness keeps us healthy.
3. Pray and from your heart, forgive all those who have caused you pain in the current year or in the past. You definitely do not want to carry any excess luggage of pain into the coming year. Colossians 3:13 says “if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.”
4. Pray over every item on your list – the list of things you will want God to do for you. Spend time praying on each of them.
5. Commit the entire plan into the hands of the Lord.
6. Thank God for the coming year. Appreciate Him that by faith, you know He has gone ahead of you.
7. Develop a habit of singing to the Lord and worshipping Him.
Have HOPE in the future!
