I once heard someone say, “Those who fail to plan, can plan to fail.” It’s stuck with me through the years as I’ve made decisions in my life. I’m a spontaneous person at heart, but I understand the need to plan. I have friends who plan everything, but find it hard to be spontaneous. I think there can be a balance. I’ve learned to curb my spontaneity to quick events that aren’t life changing and to plan out things that have long term consequences. If you’re going to be successful in life, more often than not, it will come through planning and not through spontaneity.
Proverbs 4:26 tells us, “Plan carefully what you do, and whatever you do will turn out right.” (GNB) Solomon didn’t just tell us to plan here, he said to plan carefully. According to the Blue Letter Bible, the word he used for carefully means to weigh out. We need to look at the pros and cons of our decisions, determine what success looks like and which failures or losses will be acceptable to us. With any decisions in life, there will be gains and there will be losses. We just need to decide ahead of time if the trade-off will be worth it.
To improve your plan’s chances of success, share them with others who are wise. They will see things you don’t and provide you with different perspectives. They may also foresee road-blocks and outcomes you didn’t. Plus, they may catch the vision of your plans and work with you long term to help you accomplish them. Proverbs 15:22 tells us, “Get all the advice you can, and you will succeed; without it you will fail.” That seems pretty straightforward, but what happens when you fail?
I believe that a good portion of our growth comes from failure. At work, I tried to prove I had a better way to do a certain process. I was wrong. My boss then said, “It’s ok to fail as long as you fail forward.” He was trying to say, “You’re going to have failures in your life. You can either let them drag you back to where you started or you can let them lead you down a new path.” Your life will have failures in it, but it’s what you do after that matters. I like to tell people, “You only fail when you quit trying.”
Success in life is not hard to find – it’s hard to do. It requires planning and counseling from people who are wiser than you are or have different perspectives than you do. Remember earlier, I said you have to determine what success looks like. For each of us, that’s different. Success isn’t always name recognition or being famous. Success can be small so long as you accomplished what you set out to do with the help of God and those He placed around you. Plan carefully with them and watch God bring success to your life.
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 