Planning Ahead

I have never been much of a planner. But somehow, every year when the yearly planners come out, I always get excited. They come in all shapes and sizes, colors and textures. And without fail, every year I am duped into buying one. It doesn't matter that the year before I only used it until June, I convince myself that this is the year I will be organized and walk out of the store with a shiny little yearly planner. And its funny that I always dupe myself into buying a planner. I can barely plan for something next week, let alone a month out! Since I never write things down in my shiny little planners, things can only be planned as far out as I can remember!

However, the older I get, the more I realize I need to plan. Sure, I don’t need to schedule play dates weeks in advance (HELLO, nothing about my life is certain, so a play date too far out definitely is not!) but I do need to plan my life out. Now, at this point in my spiel, I could go off on one of my favorite scripture verses – Proverbs 16:9 – In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps – but that is not what this post is about. It is about planning ahead. God doesn’t want us to not plan; He just wants us to give those plans to Him.
Sure, I have things like a retirement account…admittedly only because a past employer set it up for me, for which I am thankful. And I have thought about the future…

But trying to put that thought into practice is the hard part.

Trying to plan ahead. Figure out how many kids we want (which I will take one at a time and decide). Trying to figure out where we want those kids to grow up, where we want those kids to go to school. Trying to figure out our careers. Higher education? Career aspirations?

It makes me realize that life takes thought. Sure, things happen one day at a time, but if you just look at life day by day rather than looking at the big picture, you will never go to school, never save up for your dream home, never achieve more that you can in a day. And because of that, I want to be a planner.