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?
Russ Lawson
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