Everyone you talk with has plans,
or most do anyway. I talked to an out of state friend today and we ended up
talking about our plans. We are going to do things, go places, keep
appointments, talk with others, visit, phone, text, email, attend or something
of the sort at all times.
Being a minister, perhaps I am more
to inclined to ask than others, "how important are those plans," and
"do you clearly understand what your plans mean to your life?"
I love the humorous story of a new
young minister. He felt he needed to challenge his congregation to plan on
doing one big thing for the coming year. As he thought about it, he walked into
the auditorium and noticed, as he had often before that it was dark and dreary.
The idea came to him that perhaps he could unite the church behind the idea of buying
a chandelier to hang in the middle of the meeting hall.
He spent the next several days
preparing his sermon. On Sunday morning he spent twenty minutes telling the
congregation how great it would be to have a chandelier, He chandeliered this and he chandeliered that
and finished his sermon with a big pitch for funds with which to buy a glorious
chandelier.
He really felt he had done well,
and people were very complementary of his lesson. But after several weeks he
still had heard of no action being taken by the leadership. So, he dropped in
on one of the elders for a visit and finally broached the subject of the
chandelier and whether they were making plans to raise funds for one.
He was rather surprised by the
elder's response: "Oh, we talked about that and decided against it. You
see nobody around here knows how to spell that word and even if we got one of
them things there's not a soul within a hundred miles who knows how to play one.
Besides that we decided what we needed more, are more lights in the meeting
hall!"
Well, that's the way it is with
some of our plans isn't it. We think that we have thought out all areas of the
matter, but when we begin to make plans we find out there were some areas of
the problem which we didn't clearly understand. If there is one point I want to
make it is that plans for our churches are important, good and necessary!
However, plans for our lives are more important!
What is the chandelier in your
life? What is it you really want to do or accomplish? Do you really have a
clear understanding of it and is it what you really need to bring light to your
life? James gives us an important lesson in life in the matter of making plans
when he says, "Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a
city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye
know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor
that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. For that ye ought to
say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that, the darkness is
disappearing, and the true light is already shining." (James
4:13-15)
If you want more light in your
life, you need more of Jesus, not a chandelier! Do any other plans you make
really matter?
