God's Purposes Versus Our Plans

"We often dream our dreams of what we want to do for God. We formulate plans based on our priorities. Then we pray and ask God to bless our efforts and to help us accomplish our goals. (After all, we're doing it for Him!) We mobilize fellow believers to make our schemes successful. What is really important, however, is what God plans to do where we are and how He wants to accomplish His purposes through us. Here is what the Scriptures say about our plans and purposes: "The LORD frustrates the counsel of the the nations; He thwarts the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of His heart from geneartion to generation" (Ps. 33:10-11). "Many plans are in a man's heart, but the LORD's decree will prevail" (Prov. 19:21).
If your agenda is not the same as God's, you will not experience God working through you. God reveals His purposes so you will know what He plans to do. Then you can join Him. His plans and purposes will not be thwarted. They will succeed. The Lord foils the worldly plans of the nations, but His plans come to pass.
Planning is a valuable exercise, but it can never become a substitute for hearing from God. Your plans only have merit when they are based on what God has told you He intends to do. Your relationship with God is far more important to Him than any scheming you can do. The biggest problem with planning is when we try to carry out in our own wisdom what only God has a right to determine. We cannot know the when or where or how of God's will until He tells us.
God intends that we follow Him. He expects us to get our directives from Him, and He wants to equip us to do the assignment he gives. If we try to spell out all the details of His will in a planning session, we'll have a tendency to forget the need for a daily, intimate relationship with God. We may accomplish our objectives but forgo the relationship. It is possible to achieve all of our goals and yet be outside God's will. God created us for an eternal love relationship. Life is our opportunity to experience Him at work in us and in our world.
Planning is not wrong. Just be careful not to plan more than God intends for you to. Let God interrupt or redirect your plans anytime He wants to. Remain in a close relationship with Him so you can always hear His voice when He speaks to you. I have found that the best planning meetings are prayer meetings where we spend time with our Father finding out what He is up to. If churches are really serious about doing God's will, they will spend more time seeking God's will and less time arguing and debating about what each member thinks the church ought to be doing."

Henry Blackaby, Richard Blackaby, Claude King