Life Planning: What do I do now?

This phrase is very different from the other phrases or words in my manuscript title in one very distinctive way. I have had the phrase Life Planning firmly fixed in my mind for many years. I started working on the idea of Life Planning a number of years before I had my traumatic brain incidents. During my years at Indiana Wesleyan University, in working with and supervising the staff of the IWU Life Calling and Leadership Center, I developed a five step process outlining how I believed God works in the lives of Christians. I labeled this process Life Planning because it helped individuals answer the question: “Which way do I go now?”  My proposed manuscript explains this process and helps individuals work through the details in their own lives.

When individuals face the question “Which way do I go now?” they are really facing a multitude of questions. It is a time of challenge trying to balance many questions at once. There are so many choices and so many opportunities in an individual’s future. It can literally have a person’s head spinning.

As individuals face this challenge, they can be overwhelmed and find themselves buried under the weight of many questions.

At this point in their lives, they may have reached a point where they really can’t dig out on their own and they definitely need help extricating themselves from this tangled mess. The first place to find help is another person who can lend a helping hand. This person can be a parent, friend, teacher, pastor, or professional counselor. I believe that a second source of help could be my book, if the person is willing to spend the necessary time working through the book.

What is my five-step program? In words from before my TBI, the LIfe Planning process begins with God reaching out to individuals and inviting them to enter into a personal relationship with Him. It continues with those individuals responding to God, and then looking inward to satisfy their own inner questions, needs and desires. It concludes with individuals reaching out to other people.The five steps may be summarized in the following manner:

• CALLING is God’s summoning individuals to enjoy the benefits of His grace, and then empowering them to participate in His grand plan for the universe.
• MINISTRY is God’s assignment of an individual to a particular function, office or area of service.
• VOCATION can be seen as the means of fulfilling God’s assignment. It is giving voice and hands to God’s calling and one’s inner self. It is the means of fulfilling one’s inner spiritual need to follow God’s summons and assignment.
• PREPARATION is the individual’s personal response as the best way to equip one’s self for one’s vocation.
• ENGAGEMENT is the final step, as an individual takes action in one’s ministry and vocation to fullfill God’s plan in his or her life. It almost always involves reaching out to others.

At this point in this post I diverge from the prepared script written prior to my TBIs and rejoin the battle between verbal and visual thinking. In the above discussion, I have given a short outline of my understanding of the process of life planning.  I really have not defined life planning. So I ask the question: “What is life planning?” I have already hinted that life planning is a multi-faceted process. Some of the facets include setting a goal and racing toward it, defining success and measuring it, and navigating the maze of life

It involves investigating all the opportunities available to any individual and the open doors before that individual:

 

It involves balancing work and life, setting the bar high and striving to vault over it, and climbing to the summit and planting one’s flag on it.

Sometimes it involves an individual search for and finding the missing piece that fits right into the open slot of a pie, or the right key to open one’s mind to what lies in front of the individual

 

 

 

Finding the adjective Biblical may have been the most difficult aspect of constructing the manuscript title. In my next post I will explain how I decided to use the term Biblical. I will also discuss some of the implications of using the term Biblical to describe my Life Planning process.