7 - Be flexible

Finally, be flexible with your time. It is tempting, once you have an elegant plan, to want to stick to it at all costs. Beware of this temptation. By all means use your plan to order your life, and get more done. By all means use your plan as a discipline for spending your time productively. But beware of using your plan as an excuse for ignoring legitimate demands on your time. If somebody needs help, and your plan didn’t allow time – too bad for the plan! If somebody is sick or needy, or an older brother or sister requires your help, or a crisis hits a friend and they need your time, give it wholeheartedly. Your plans will never work out exactly as you intended.

There is an important reason for this. God has His own view of human plans: “The disposings of the heart in man … is from the LORD … Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established” (Proverbs 16:1,3). It is entirely proper to make plans, even ambitious plans, provided that it is recognised that all our life, at every point, is rightly subject to the will of God (James 4: 15). Repeatedly the over-riding will of God is acknowledged in the New Testament (Acts 21:14; 1 Corinthians 4:17-19; 16:4-7). Do not try to plan God out of your life. When something unexpected happens to you, calling for a godly response, lay your plans aside, and embrace the will of God wholeheartedly.

In conclusion …

Well that’s about it, really. We have an unknown amount of time ahead of us, but we do know there is a limit on it. Life as we know it will not go on forever. As we cannot do everything, we must decide what is important, and use our time as productively as possible to achieve these things. Let the word of God be your guide in setting goals and objectives, in determining priorities, and in planning and using your time. And prayerfully commit all plans to God, who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.

We’ll let the Lord himself have the last say. “Happy is that servant, whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods” (Matthew 24:46-47).