Emmanuel had a spreadsheet for everything. His colleagues at the logistics company joked that he could not buy bread without first entering it in a cell. At home, on a laptop that sat permanently on one end of the dining table, he kept a workbook with eleven tabs. One tracked school fees for his three children, term by term, until the youngest finished secondary school. One tracked rent, with an automatic reminder sixty days before each renewal. One was labelled Contingencies, and it held a small emergency fund that he topped up on the twenty-sixth of every month without fail.
The most important tab was called Relocation. For four years Emmanuel and his wife had been saving towards a move abroad. The tab listed every requirement: the language test, the credential evaluation, the application fees, and above all the proof of funds the embassy would want to see. Each month a green bar crept a little closer to the target. He would sometimes open that tab late on a Sunday afternoon just to look at the bar.
Then the naira fell. It did not slip gradually, the way he had modelled in his worst-case scenario. Within a single year it lost more than half its value against the dollar. The money in the account was still there, every kobo of it. But in the currency the embassy cared about, the green bar shrank back to where it had been two years earlier. Four years of discipline had been halved by decisions made in rooms he would never enter.
He told me about the Sunday afternoon he finally understood what had happened. He sat at the dining table, recalculating. He tried new assumptions. He built a new column. Every version of the spreadsheet gave him the same answer, and at some point he realised that his hands were shaking. “Pastor,” he said, “I had planned for everything. I had a tab for contingencies. I did not have a tab for this.”
That afternoon he drove to Oyingbo market to see Iya Alaba, an old friend of his late mother’s who had sold provisions from the same stall for over forty years. He did not quite know why he went. Perhaps he simply wanted to sit with someone who had lived through more than one collapse. She listened while he talked, nodding, measuring out rice for a customer at the same time. When he finished, she said something he wrote down that night.
Punchline“My son, I plan. You think I have sold here forty years without planning? I know what sells in December and what sells in Lent. But I do not sleep on my plans. I sleep on God.”
The man who spoke to his soul
Jesus told a story about a planner. It was prompted by a man in the crowd who called out, “Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me” (Luke 12:13). Jesus refused to arbitrate the family quarrel. Instead He addressed the condition underneath it: “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15). Then He told this parable:
And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.
Notice first that the man’s problem began with a blessing. “The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully.” He did not steal the harvest. The rain and the sun came from God. And his response was not foolish on the surface. A larger harvest really does need more storage. Any agricultural adviser would have told him to build bigger barns.
The problem is revealed in how he speaks. Read the passage again and count the words I and my. “What shall I do... I have no room... my fruits... This will I do: I will pull down my barns... I will bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul...” In three verses the man refers to himself again and again. He does not mention God once. He does not mention a single neighbour. He holds a conversation in which the only participants are himself and his own soul.
And what does he say to his soul? “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease.” He is asking his soul to rest on his storage. He has turned a good harvest into the foundation of his security, and he has assumed that the years are his to count.
Then God speaks, and it is the only time in the story that anyone else speaks at all. “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.” The man had a plan for many years. He did not have tonight. Calling him a fool was no comment on his ability. The man was clearly capable. In the Bible’s vocabulary, a fool is someone who lives as though God were not there. “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Psalm 14:1). The rich man would never have said that aloud. He simply organised his whole future without reference to Him.
“So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” That is the summary. The man was rich in barns and poor toward God. He planned well for everything except the one thing that mattered most.
Planning is not the enemy
We need to be careful here, because some believers hear this parable and conclude that planning itself is unspiritual. They feel that budgeting shows a lack of faith, or that saving for the future is the rich fool’s sin. That is not what Jesus teaches, and the rest of Scripture says plainly otherwise.
“The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness; but of every one that is hasty only to want” (Proverbs 21:5). The book of Proverbs sends the lazy man to study the ant, which “Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest” (Proverbs 6:8). Jesus Himself uses the example of a man who wants to build a tower: “which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” (Luke 14:28). Counting the cost is presented as ordinary wisdom.
The most striking example is Joseph in Egypt. When God revealed through Pharaoh’s dreams that seven years of plenty would be followed by seven years of famine, Joseph did not tell Pharaoh to stop worrying and trust God. He proposed a detailed national plan. Appoint officers. Take up a fifth of the harvest in the good years. Store the grain in the cities under royal authority (Genesis 41:33-36). It was a strategy, carefully costed and patiently carried out, and it saved Egypt and the surrounding nations, including Joseph’s own family.
So the problem is not the plan. A careful plan can serve love, especially when others depend on you. A father who saves for his children’s school fees is honouring God. A church that budgets responsibly is caring for its members. A business owner who thinks ahead is protecting the families of her staff.
The difference between Joseph and the rich fool is not that one planned and the other did not. Both made large storage plans. The difference is where each one’s confidence rested and whom each plan was for. Joseph planned in response to what God had revealed, for the sake of a whole nation. The rich fool planned in response to his own appetite, for the sake of his own ease. One plan was held under God. The other replaced Him.
Your Father knoweth
Right after the parable, Jesus turns to His disciples and speaks to the anxiety that sits beneath so much of our planning. He tells them to “Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them” (Luke 12:24). Notice the deliberate contrast with the parable. The rich man was obsessed with barns. The ravens do not have one, and God feeds them anyway. Jesus then reaches His conclusion:
And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
“Neither be ye of doubtful mind.” The Greek word behind that phrase originally meant to be lifted up and suspended in mid-air. It describes a mind that has no settled place to rest, that is always lifted and dropped by the next possibility. Many planners know that feeling well. Every scenario has a scenario behind it.
Jesus does not answer this by telling the disciples that their needs are unimportant. He says the opposite: “your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.” Food and drink and clothing are real needs, and the Father knows them. The anxious mind assumes that if it does not track every need, nobody will. Jesus says Someone already is.
Then He reorders their seeking. “But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.” The things are not removed from the picture. They are added. The disciple’s main pursuit becomes God’s reign in his life, and provision follows as the care of the King.
And then comes one of the tenderest sentences in the Gospels. “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Look at the word pleasure. God is not reluctantly supplying His people. He is delighted to give. The planner’s deepest fear is that if he stops holding everything together, everything will fall apart. Jesus tells His little flock that their Father enjoys taking care of them.
NuggetThat changes the emotional atmosphere of planning. You are not the last line of defence between your family and disaster. You are a son or daughter working under a Father who already knows what you need and is pleased to provide it.
“If the Lord will”
James addresses a group of businessmen with a sharpness that still stings:
Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
The plan described here is quite detailed. They know the city they will travel to, the length of their stay and the purpose of the trip. “To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain.” James does not criticise the trading or the profit. He criticises the assumption beneath it, that tomorrow is theirs to command.
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow.” That is simply true. No spreadsheet can tell you what tomorrow holds. Exchange rates move. Companies are sold. Health changes overnight. A road that was open on Monday may be blocked by Wednesday. Proverbs says the same: “Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth” (Proverbs 27:1).
“For what is your life? It is even a vapour.” Think of the steam that rises from a pot of pepper soup. It is visible for a moment and then it is gone. James is not trying to make us morbid. He wants us to be honest. Our lives are dependent, and our plans are provisional.
So he gives us a better way to speak: “If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” Notice that this sentence still contains a plan. We shall do this or that. James does not tell them to stop planning. He tells them to plan under the Lord.
Paul lived this way. When he left Ephesus, he told the believers there, “I will return again unto you, if God will” (Acts 18:21). He wrote to the Corinthians, “I trust to tarry a while with you, if the Lord permit” (1 Corinthians 16:7). He told the Romans of his intention to take the gospel to Spain and visit them on the way (Romans 15:24). Paul was a strategic thinker. He chose cities, planned routes and organised collections. But he held his plans with open hands. And in fact he did reach Rome, though not in the way he had planned. He arrived as a prisoner in chains, by way of a shipwreck.
We should be careful that “if the Lord will” does not become a phrase we attach to an unchanged attitude, the way some people say “by God’s grace” as a kind of verbal decoration. James wants the humility to be real. It should make us more willing to hear advice, slower to promise what we cannot guarantee, and more ready to change course when circumstances change.
Lean not unto thine own understanding
Many believers know the next passage by heart. It is worth reading again in light of what we have seen:
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD , and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.
“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” The image in lean is of putting your full weight on something, the way a tired man leans on a walking stick. The verse does not say, “Do not use your understanding.” Proverbs is a book that constantly urges us to get wisdom, seek counsel and think carefully. It says, do not lean on it. Do not put your whole weight on your own analysis as though it could hold you up.
Your understanding is a gift from God. Use it. Think, research, calculate, consult. But your understanding is limited. It cannot see the future, and it cannot see the full picture of the present. It is a good tool and a terrible foundation.
“In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” All thy ways includes the budget meeting and the relocation tab. Acknowledging God in your plans means bringing Him into them from the beginning, not merely asking Him to bless them at the end. It means asking what He wants, being willing to hear a no, and recognising that He may have a better route.
Proverbs makes the same point in two other memorable verses. “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). And, “There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand” (Proverbs 19:21). The planner devises. God directs. That is not a contradiction. It is how the relationship is meant to work. You make your plans, and you trust God to direct the steps within them, beyond them, and sometimes against them.
Then come two phrases we often skip. “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.” Acknowledging God in our plans includes asking whether our plans are right, not merely whether they will work. A scheme that secures our advantage by cheating a supplier, deceiving a client or neglecting our family is not made wise by its efficiency. God’s direction always has moral substance.
When the ship breaks up
One of the most vivid pictures of planning and providence in the New Testament is the account of Paul’s shipwreck in Acts 27. Paul was being taken to Rome as a prisoner. It was late in the sailing season, and he warned the centurion that continuing the voyage would bring “hurt and much damage” (Acts 27:10). But the centurion trusted the ship’s master and owner more than the prisoner, and the majority wanted to reach a better harbour for the winter. Their plan was reasonable. It was also wrong.
A violent storm struck. For many days they saw neither sun nor stars. They threw cargo and tackle overboard. Luke, who was on the ship, writes that “all hope that we should be saved was then taken away” (Acts 27:20). Then Paul stood up:
But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Cæsar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.
God’s promise was clear. Nobody would die. But look carefully at what the promise did not include. “There shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship.” The ship would be lost. The cargo was already gone. The original plan to winter in a comfortable harbour was finished. God’s care was going to preserve what mattered most, but not every arrangement the travellers had made.
Look also at what happened next. When some sailors tried to escape in the lifeboat, Paul told the centurion, “Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved” (Acts 27:31). God’s promise did not make wise action unnecessary. Paul then urged everyone to eat, because they had gone fourteen days without proper food. He gave thanks and broke bread in front of them all. The assurance of God’s care did not replace practical responsibility. It was worked out through it.
This gives us a pattern when our own plans break down. God’s care is greater than our planning, but it often operates through the next sensible step. When a plan fails, look for the next responsibility. Who needs accurate information? What resources remain? Whose help should be asked for? What decision can no longer be postponed?
You may also need to grieve. The ship was a real loss. Four years of savings shrinking in value is a real loss. Taking practical action does not mean the loss was small. Bring it to the Father honestly, without demanding an immediate explanation as the condition of your continued trust.
Care that sees further than you can
The story of Joseph gives us one more angle on God’s care. Joseph had his own plans too. When he interpreted the cupbearer’s dream in prison, he made a very reasonable request: “But think on me when it shall be well with thee... and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house” (Genesis 40:14). It was a good plan. It used the only connection he had. And it failed completely. The cupbearer forgot him. Genesis records it with painful precision: “it came to pass at the end of two full years” (Genesis 41:1).
Two full years. Joseph’s plan had a timeline, and God’s care had another. Yet when the cupbearer finally remembered, Joseph was brought out of prison at exactly the moment when Pharaoh needed him, with exactly the revelation Egypt needed to survive. Had he been released two years earlier, he might have been back in Canaan, or sold again, or simply forgotten in some lesser position. The delay that felt like failure turned out to be the timing of a care much larger than his plan.
Many years later, after their father Jacob died, Joseph’s brothers were terrified that he would finally take revenge for what they had done to him. Joseph’s answer is one of the great statements of providence in Scripture:
And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.
“Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.” Joseph did not pretend that what his brothers did was good. He called it evil. Their plan was to get rid of him. God’s purpose was “to save much people alive.” The same events carried two intentions, and God’s was the one that prevailed.
Notice too what Joseph’s understanding of God’s care did to his treatment of others. “I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.” A man who trusts that God’s care is greater than human planning, even hostile planning, is free to be generous. He does not need to control every outcome or settle every score.
None of this means we will always be able to see the good in our own lifetime. Joseph lived long enough to see it. Many faithful people have not. But Scripture gives us enough examples of God’s larger care to let us trust Him where we cannot yet see.
Planning with open hands
So how do we plan as children of a Father who cares? A psalm that carries Solomon’s name in its heading gives us a place to begin:
Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.
Solomon built the temple, the royal palace and the wall of Jerusalem. Few people in Israel knew more about planning a building project. And the psalm says, “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” Notice that the builders are still building. The watchman is still on the wall. Human work is assumed. But without the Lord, it is in vain.
“It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.” The bread of sorrows is anxious toil, work that never feels finished because everything seems to depend on you. The psalm sets that against a gift: sleep. God gives His beloved sleep. Rest is not a reward for having controlled everything. It is a gift to those who are loved.
Here are some ways that truth can shape your planning.
Plan, and then pray over the plan honestly. Ask God what He thinks about it. Ask Him to show you what you have missed, and whether the plan is right as well as whether it will work.
Hold the plan provisionally. Write it in pencil, so to speak. Be ready to revise it when the facts change, and do not treat a revision as a spiritual defeat.
Seek counsel. “Without counsel purposes are disappointed” (Proverbs 15:22). A plan that cannot survive questions from a wise friend is probably not a good plan.
Include God and your neighbour in the plan. The rich fool’s plan had no room for either. Ask how your plans serve the people God has given you, and whether there is room for generosity.
Do the work of today, and then stop. Jesus said, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matthew 6:34). Some planners feel that if they stop thinking about the future for one evening, it will fall apart. Close the laptop. Go to bed. The Father who knows your need does not sleep.
And when the plan breaks, as some plans will, return to the One who cares. Peter writes, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7). The word casting suggests throwing something heavy off your shoulders onto someone else. Your care is too heavy for you to carry alone. His care for you is greater than your care for yourself.
Emmanuel still has his spreadsheet. He showed it to me recently. The Relocation tab is still there, though the plan has changed. He and his wife decided, after much prayer and counsel, to postpone the move for a few years and invest in his wife’s small business instead. The business is growing. The school fees tab is still up to date. The contingencies tab is still topped up on the twenty-sixth of every month.
But there is a new tab at the end of the workbook. It is called Given. In it he lists, month by month, the provisions that came which he had not planned for: the bonus he did not expect, the neighbour who paid for his son’s extra lessons when he lost his job, the customer who brought his wife’s business three new clients, the doctor at church who would not take payment. He said the list grew faster than he expected once he started paying attention.
Punchline“I still plan,” he told me, smiling. “Iya Alaba would not respect me if I did not. But I have stopped sleeping on my plans.”
That is the invitation to you. Plan carefully. Count the cost. Save, budget, think ahead. But do not ask your soul to rest on your barns. Your life does not consist in the abundance of what you have stored. It rests in the care of a Father who knows what you need, who is pleased to give you the kingdom, and who gives His beloved sleep. Close the laptop tonight, and sleep on God.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Read Luke 12:16-21 again. Where do you recognise the rich man’s way of speaking to his own soul in your own thinking?
- What is the difference between Joseph’s planning in Genesis 41 and the rich fool’s planning in Luke 12? Which is closer to your own?
- Which of your current plans have you been holding as though tomorrow belonged to you? What would it look like to say, sincerely, “If the Lord will”?
- When a plan of yours has failed, what has your response revealed about where your confidence was resting?
- What would you put on a list of things “given” that you never planned for?
This Week
Choose one plan you are currently working on, whether financial, family, career or ministry. Write it out on one page. Then pray through Proverbs 3:5-8 over it, asking three questions: Is this plan right? Have I acknowledged God in it from the beginning? Where am I leaning on my own understanding? Show the plan to one wise friend this week and ask for an honest response. Then start your own list of things “given”: provisions, kindnesses and open doors you did not plan. Add to it every evening before you sleep.
A Prayer
Father, thank You that You know what I need before I ask, and that it is Your good pleasure to give me the kingdom. Forgive me for the times I have spoken to my own soul as though my plans could secure my future. Teach me to plan wisely and to hold my plans with open hands. Help me to acknowledge You in all my ways, to hear Your correction, and to change course when You lead me. When my plans fail, help me find the next responsibility and trust Your care through it. I cast my care on You, because You care for me. Give me, Your beloved, sleep tonight. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.