The Power of Planning

Consider these few thoughts about thoughts. A thought is a silent word. Therefore, a word is an exposed thought. Everything in life starts in the form of a thought. Imagination is when a thought becomes a plan. Therefore, imagination is a plan that is not documented. If you want to be successful in life, take your ideas, turn them into imaginations, and then take the imagination and duplicate it physically. The physical document becomes a plan of action.

Many people never get beyond the idea stage. Those are the people that are usually followers. Next there are people who get to the imagination stage. They usually talk a lot but do nothing. Those people are called dreamers. However, when a man or woman takes their imagination and puts it on paper, you are looking at a visionary who is becoming a missionary. If you see things in your mind, you are a visionary.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of visionaries in the graveyard. They had great visions, but their vision never became a mission. When a visionary becomes a missionary, you have a man or woman who is going to change the world.

Consider now the Divine thoughts on thoughts. In the Book of Ephesians, God’s thoughts about thoughts and imagination are revealed. It states, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Eph 3:20). Evidently, God wants us to become people who have plans. He says to use your imagination, but imaginations are plans that are undocumented. When you can document an imagination, you have developed a plan of action for your life. I can guarantee that people who are confused, bored, or disillusioned probably do not have a piece of paper in their life with their plan on it for the next five years. If you do not have anything to look at, you begin reminiscing. If there is no goal in front of you, you check the hazardous holes behind you. If there is no vision in front of you to pull you, you will be dragged back to a past with which you are familiar.

If you do not have a clear plan for your life on paper, you are going to be a confused, misguided person. For this reason, the Scripture says so clearly in Proverbs 16:1, “To man belong the plans of the heart, but from the LORD comes the reply of the tongue.” The author goes on to say, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps” (Prov 16:9).

As God commanded Moses, document your plan. When you have it all down on paper, if you get confused, you have something to which you can refer. I admonish you to stop, plot your course, and set it for as far as you can imagine. Do not worry about how it is going to get done. God said that if you make the plan, He would give the answer as to how it will be accomplished (Prov 16:1).