Worse than making no plan at all is making a bad plan.
This last week has been a serious trial. I’ve had to travel, which means I’ve gotten up close and personal with the airline industry. Let me summarize by saying “it’s been rough.”
The theme of the week has been that every flight I wanted to be on time… wasn’t. And every flight I wanted to be late… wasn’t.
I’m sure the first part of that theme makes complete sense to you. But the second half deserves a story
I live in Phoenix, Arizona (USA). My corporate headquarters is in Kansas City, Kansas (USA). The important thing to know about that is that the 2 cities are in different time zones. Phoenix is behind Kansas City.
So when I booked my flight out of Kansas City, I blocked my calendar. The flight was at 2:53 in the afternoon, so I put a block on my calendar from 1:00 to 3:00. That was 2 hours to drive to the airport, turn in the rental car, get through security and walk on the plan.
A great plan, right? Do you see the fly in the ointment?
I’ll say that I performed the plan flawlessly. When my last meeting finished up, I packed my bag and headed out, if anything a few minutes ahead of time.
It wasn’t until I had put gas in the rental car, turned it in and was standing on the bus from the rental car facility that I realized that I had a problem.
3:00 PM in Phoenix is 4:00 PM in Kansas City.
Yeah. Oops. I didn’t give myself 2 hours to get to the airport, I gave myself 1 hour. And during that hour, I acted like I had twice as long as I actually did.
On the rental car shuttle, I figured out that I had 20 minutes until the plane took off. Twenty minutes isn’t very long to get through security and to a gate. Bottom line is … I didn’t. The one plane I wanted to be delayed left exactly on time.
Without me.
It wasn’t the end of the road. I was able to book replacement flights and get to the destination I wanted. Granted I didn’t get very good seats, and if a few things didn’t go my way, I wouldn’t have gotten in until after midnight.
Why would I tell you this story?
I think it has a moral.
There is a really important lesson in here. I know I learned one. But I think it’s a lesson that you could think about and get a ton of value from.
It doesn’t matter how well you execute a plan, if it’s a bad plan, your results will suck.
Once I forgot to block my calendar in the right timezone, it was all over. There was no way I could perfectly execute the plan and make the flight. I thought I was doing a good job of holding to the plan. But that was just an illusion (until I realized how broken the plan was).
So let me turn this back on you.
Spiritually, are you executing a plan that is doomed to fail? If your plan is wrong, no amount of attention will produce happy results.
How do you know if you’re perfectly following a doomed plan?
Well you could follow it and see where it leads. The only problem with this is you could end up like me. Missing the plane (or whatever the plan is about).
The better path is to re-examine your plan. I mean really give it a close look. Check your assumptions. Consider all the aspects of what you’re doing.
Because it’s really sad to get to the end of a plan and realize it’s going to fail.
Trust me, I know.
Here are some things to use as a rubric for your plan.
- Are you consuming God’s Word? This is the bedrock of the Christian life. Read it, memorize it, study it.
- Prayer. It’s essential too. Talking to God is a critical element of maturity for believers.
- Church. The Christian life was not meant to be a solo gig. You need to be embedded in a community of Believers. This was always Jesus’ plan for us, and if you look at the New Testament, it’s the center of the Christian experience.
- Worship. Yes, this often happens at church. But live a life of worship. It’s more than singing songs on Sunday. It’s a whole life attitude.
Check your plan. It’s worth it to make corrections. Trust me. I learned that the hard way. 🙂
Until next time,
Dennis
