2014--What are your plans this year?

Verse of the Day:

“Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” Proverbs 16:3

At the beginning of the year and going into the new year, people usually make plans to change something or the other for the better. We call it a New Year’s resolution or resolve. You may want to lose weight, eat healthier, be a better parent or spouse, a vacation, new career, or maybe you simply want to live life for God this year. While we have plans for ourselves, God has plans for us too.

The Lord says in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

God wants only the good for us, but it is us who gets out of His plans to seek our own and we get so caught up in doing us we forget about doing God. How many of you know that God never forgets about you?

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
    and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
    I will not forget you!
 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
    your walls are ever before me.” Isaiah 49:15-16

I asked my children what their plans were and here is the list:

1.      Play computer games

2.      Play piano

3.      Build airplanes and forts  with leggos

4.      Play with family and friends

5.      Play with bear

6.      Fries, fries, cheese  sandwich, and fries

(The last 2 from my 2 year old!) =)

            Then I told them my plans of teaching preschool, training and educating my children, being a better wife and mother, serving the Lord, teaching at church, giving more, praise and worship, dance, and music.

Our plan can be motivated by self or motivated in God. If our plans line up with God’s plans, those plans will prosper if we faint not.  My children’s plans are focused on playing and eating, something you don’t need God’s help to do. This is an example of immaturity in the things of God. This is why I encourage them, likewise, to sow to the spirit, the things of God.

My plans are God centered, in the work God has placed before me, so I need Him to work in me and His Spirit to guide me and direct my path. When we give it over to God, He will direct our path.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.^”

I like that the NIV reads “submit” rather than acknowledge because it defines it better for us to understand that our submission is connected to God’s hand moving in our lives. How many times do we “lean to our own understanding” and make decisions without praying about it and committing it to the Lord? If we want our plans to be established or to succeed, we need to commit it to God though prayer and obedience through faith.

Without Jesus, we are nothing but sinners still lost and without hope. Thank God we have found this hope in Him, that while we were yet sinners Christ dies for us. Amen!

I thank the Lord for his saving grace and for leading me to the right path. May our plans for 2014 and beyond be established, may they succeed, be achieved, and directed by the Lord. He is our great deliverer, and our plans in Him are mighty to save and lift up his people. Be blessed as you humble yourself to serve the King, the King of glory! The Lord strong and mighty! 

Get committed saints of God! There’s no better place to be than under the shadows of His wings!

Walk in the Spirit,

Prophetess Deanna Mack

“Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:” Psalm 37:5