Dreaming and Planning

“But the noble make noble plans, and by noble deeds they stand.” (Isaiah 32:8)

YRecently I wrote about being Thankful and Grateful. Once our heart is in the right place recognizing what God has already done and provided for, then we can move into Dreaming and Planning.

They are the flip side of that coin.

Being thankful and grateful is directed towards the past and now, while dreaming and planning are looking into the future, asking God to help direct us.

Dreams are not just what our brain does when we sleep at night and is processing the days events. They are the goals and visions that fire our hearts. They are the thoughts that run through our mind when we think of what we could accomplish if there were no restraints on time or money, as well as thinking of the kind of person we want to become in the process.

Often times our dreams are too limited. We self impose what is possible. When you dream don’t limit what can be done – this is time to imagine. A dream is a hope filled possibility. These are precious and can easily be destroyed by having doubts or limiting beliefs. This is not the time to listen to that voice in our heads that tries to tell us “that will never happen.”

How the dream becomes a reality is the next step. Plans are when we take those dreams and see how to make them happen.

• Taking the imagined into the possible.
• Putting wheels on the wagon.

This is where you ask God to show you How and When. Some of your dreams may be still in the dream phase, as there are others that need to be fulfilled first. Some dreams may not happen for a long time, or they may change along the way.

Plans are our God-inspired directions or recipe for making those dreams a reality. The challenge in this area is to hold these loosely and realize that at the end of the day our plans are dependent upon God and His will for our lives. It’s not wrong to make plans, but we need to submit them to God and ask for his guidance with them.

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

Oswald Chambers writes: “Don’t plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were not chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without Him— that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning. In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives.”

My challenge to you is to dream a dream so big only God can fulfill it. Then ask Him to show you what your part is in the plan to fulfill that.