A Wise Planner

A Wise Planner

The Ideal Woman

Read: Proverbs 31:15

The woman in Proverbs 31 discovered two keys to making the most of her time: planning and delegating. Although she gets up early to make breakfast, she allows extra time in the morning for planning her day’s activities. Rather than start the day in a rush, she schedules a quiet time to prayerfully reflect on the needs of her family and herself and to set priorities for the day. After she determines what needs to be accomplished, she delegates some assignments to her servant girls.

Many women find that getting up a little earlier in order to plan the day helps them to get much more done. If we start the day at a hectic pace, we may end it feeling exhausted and wondering why we didn’t accomplish more. Sometimes we’re worn out because we try to do everything by ourselves. We may need to practice delegating some chores to family members. Even if we can’t hire housekeepers, we all have “servant girls” in our homes—washers and dryers, dishwashers, slow cookers, food processors, bread makers, and other handy appliances. We get the most from these helpers when we plan their use.

Planning is important in our lives as well as in managing our homes. If we don’t know what we want to do with our lives, we’ll wear ourselves out for nothing. Our goal as believers is to honor God by using the gifts, abilities, and resources he has given us. All our activities can be evaluated on the basis of whether or not they help us toward that end. We might not be morning people like the Proverbs 31 woman, but it pays to have a consistent time each day for prayer, reading God’s Word, talking to him about our plans, and listening for his voice. When all our activities line up with God’s agenda for our lives, we will have found an ideal, no-fail plan.

Commit your actions to the LORD, and your plans will succeed.

Proverbs 16:3