Faith, Planning & Strategy - by Jacqui Hanbury

Planning – Do you Plan? Paul did!  Here he explains what he is planning in his letter to the church in Rome.

“But now I have finished my work in these regions, and after all these long years of waiting, I am eager to visit you.  I am planning to go to Spain, and when I do, I will stop off in Rome.  And after I have enjoyed your fellowship for a little while, you can provide for my journey.” Romans 15:23-24 NLT

We know now that those plans didn’t come to fruition, and maybe Paul wasn’t sure they would either, however that didn’t stop him planning!

In the past, I experienced exactly this.  I was not happy in a job role and knew I needed to do something different, so I prayed and waited for God to point me in the right direction.  I waited and waited!  But nothing happened.  Eventually, a couple of months later, I spoke to friends who advised that I should think about what I wanted to do next.  So I looked around and decided that staying in sales was the correct path for me, just in a different company.  I started looking for jobs and registered with a couple of recruitment consultants.   And then one of them sent me a job as a Product Manager in a company I had never heard of.  I got the job and did it for 15 years!

Initially, I sat and waited.  I thought there was no point in planning if I was in God’s will asking Him to direct my path.  However, the problem with that was that it meant I did nothing.  And God needs us to do something to signal our intent to move. That doesn’t mean He will act straightaway of course. He is God and His timing for us is perfect!

Paul didn’t sit and wait, he planned, he started implementing his plan, and then God changed it.  But he still did it.

So what should we do?  After all God said:

“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” Jeremiah 29:11

I believe that we should plan.  I believe that planning prayerfully gives God the opportunity to open the right doors for us.  The secret is not to hold on too tightly to our plan.  God will often implement our plans in a different way or with a different outcome to what we wanted.

In my role as a Strategy Implementation Specialist, planning ahead is vital. I help companies to plan – to write a strategy for the next years.  We do this by setting longer-term goals for 3 or 5 years, with these goals split into a number of areas.

Money is the first goal.  Then we decide the number of customers or orders required to achieve the money goals.  Once we know that we need to ensure all the other stuff is in place!  Stuff?  Any software you need, any equipment you need, insurance, phone, laptop – anything you need to ensure that your business runs well and that your customers are happy.  Then lastly you look at your people – the heroes of your business!  Making sure you and your team are healthy and happy is essential to a successful plan.  Once the overall goals are in place then we look at the ‘how-tos’.  What do we need to do to get there?

And then you start working on the How-tos.  You start working towards achieving your goals.  And you PRAY!  And God will then open the right doors as you move toward your goals.  It might be in small ways such as a customer coming from a new direction that you didn’t expect.  It may be a bigger change such new direction for your business causing you to have to rewrite your goals.  Whichever it is the key is to start moving towards your goals, holding on lightly to everything you are doing and being always open to God’s direction, trusting that God is with us ensuring that we are guided in our planning by him.

By Jacqui Hanbury