To Encourage You

Proverbs 12:20 “Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil, but those who plan peace have joy.”

Are you a planner?  I am.  I’m a “to do list” maker.  I like to have a plan for the day, some idea of what I’m going to do and why.  It’s likely that man’s propensity to plan is rooted in the fact that we are made in the image of God and God himself is a planner.  Scripture is filled with the planning work of God, plans laid down from the foundation of the world.  Perhaps this truth is best encapsulated in Jeremiah 29:11, where it says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”  God had a plan for the creation as He spoke it into existence in a careful and orderly way. He had a plan for a relationship with man as part of that creation, and when man rebelled against that plan by his sin, God already had a plan in place to redeem him by the sacrifice of His own Son (Ephesians 1:3-10). 

God’s planning works are plans for blessing, to bring hope, peace, and joy into our lives and to work through our lives to bring blessing, hope, peace and joy to others.  As such, when our plans are consistent with these goals, as the verse above says, we have joy.  Think about how we make plans to celebrate Christmas each year. Included in those plans are plans to give gifts to those we love. As we do this, doesn’t the plan itself bring joy?  We love to plan to do good for those we love, and the anticipation of how those acts of love will bless our loved ones brings a smile to our hearts in that planning. 

But there’s another type of planning that is a great perversion of all this.  The verse above also speaks about this.  This type of planning is that which is designed to bring harm to others. It’s the premeditation to hurt someone.  Such wicked scheming dishonors God.  He has told us that among the things that He most hates is “a heart that devises wicked plans” (Proverbs 6:18).  And just as plans to do good to others bring blessing to the heart of the planner, plans to do evil bring affliction to the heart and life of the planner.  It’s like a boomerang that comes back to hit the one who threw it. 

We have a good example of this in the life of King Saul as he plotted and schemed to bring harm to his rival David.  Because of Saul’s jealousy he went to extreme lengths in his evil schemes. In 1 Samuel 18 we read about how he made plans to give his daughter Michal to David in marriage, but it was all designed “that she may be a snare for him and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him” (1 Samuel 18:21).  In his plot for David’s demise, he sends word to him that because he was so favored, Saul would require no “bride-price,” for her hand.  The customary bride-price was a payment by the groom or his family to the bride’s parents.  No, all David would have to do was bring Saul evidence that he had killed 100 of Israel’s enemies, the Philistines, and he could have Michal to him as his wife. It was all a scheme to have David killed.  So, what was the result?  Well, the Lord gave David an even greater victory against Israel’s enemies than Saul had requested, as he slew not 100 but 200 men.  “But when Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David, and that Michal, Saul’s daughter, loved him, Saul was even more afraid of David” (1 Samuel 18:28-29). 

You see, Saul was seeing the principle played out of being ensnared in the net he had hidden for someone else. He was finding that he was falling into his own trap to his own destruction (Psalm 35:8).  That’s the way it is for a wicked schemer.  Look at Judas Iscariot.  What good did his wicked plotting do for him?  Likewise, anyone else who devises wicked schemes against others will find the principle at work that “God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption” (Galatians 6:7-8).

On the other hand, wonderfully, “but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Galatians 6:8). May God help us to be those who plan to bring blessing to others rather than harm. “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:9-10).