2 | PLANNING, PROCESSING, PURPOSING

Following with the ‘new year new me’ mantra, I feel like this is the time of the year where the planning, processing and purposing begins.

Last year I split the year into 3, so January-April, May-August and September-December. Splitting the year this way made the journey of working on my goals so much easier for me as in a way it felt like completing 3 years in one. Each third of the year, I was able to focus in detail on what I sought to achieve, what God had laid into my heart to fulfil and complete past goals that had been on standby. I am following the same format this year and even though it’s only 4 days in, so far, it’s going well.

When it comes to planning out a whole year of your life, it is a daunting task to do. I couldn’t sit here and tell you otherwise as I feel like for the past 2-3 years, getting to the last day of the previous year and trying to figure out what the new year would look like felt overwhelming. I think it’s to do with aging. It’s like back in school term you would know okay the next year would mainly be on the new school year or school chapter- GCSEs, A-Levels, University. Now when you’ve graduated and life is centred around work, it’s like yes, I know the next year would focus on work and maybe trying to move up the ladder or venture into new things but is that it?

Remember we work to live, not the other way around to live to work. Nowadays it feels like all I do is work. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad thing and in a time like this, I am very grateful I am in a position of having a job and having the financial stability from working.

Though there’s more to life than this.

There’s been so many days this past year I would think back to all of the hobbies I had when I was younger, some that have stayed as I’ve grown older but that’s all it’s been- a memory or a thought. I never really took the time to actually put in the work and engage in the hobbies that I have.

That mindset though is now in the past and this year it’s going to be different. Going back to the aging- we only live life once, so we need to learn to stop making excuses and just DO IT.

‘It’ being living life to the fullest.

All year I used the ‘I’m so busy with work, I hadn’t been feeling good mentally, also health complications in the last third of the year’ as reasons why I couldn’t set aside time to work on my hobbies and ideas I had. I know some of these reasons were plausible as the reason of taking breaks, but I didn’t need to let such breaks to be indefinite.

I settled in the excuses and let go of the purpose. It didn’t start from the view of the purpose though; it started with me not having time to plan out said purpose then building to the next stage of processing the purpose from being theoretical to reality.

Life is a three-step formula- plan, process, purpose.

Planning- the process of making plans for something.

Processing- come to understand or accept something over a period of time.

Purposing: have something as one's intention or objective.

Every definition of these three words had the word ‘something’ and that something is life. Life requires us taking the time to process the making of our life plans. Life requires us to come to understand or accept different stages of life over a period of time. Life requires us to have it as the focus of our core intention/objective to fulfil our purpose.

Life requires us to action the plans, processes and purposes. Not to focus on one over the other but to embrace each step of this formula equally in full.

Now many may have already figured out this three-step formula from an earlier stage in life and others may just be finding out about it now. Whatever stage you may be at, I wanted to remind us that there is a foundation we must attain before we can even start to pursue the three-step formula of life.

A foundation as a child of God.

Life doesn’t always turn out as we may have planned it. The process of being able to progress in life may be painful at times. We may struggle. We may face stumbling blocks along the way, but we are reminded of the fact that we’re not doing life alone. We have God. A supernatural power that can make mountains move (Matthew 17:20). He who fights our battles for us where we don’t even need to make notice of our presence in said battle as He has taken over for our victory (Exodus 14:14). We have an everlasting God and therefore we can never be shamed. We have an everlasting God and therefore we walk in and out of every door with purpose because the mindset that we have, founded in God’s truth, reminds us that the pain and suffering of today will not last forever- we will overcome and we will thrive.

It's so easy to get distracted from our purpose in life: externally from naysayers and internally through self-infliction caused by doubt and uncertainty. It’s just as easy to have that discipline to not allow such thoughts to take over and empower us in a way contrasting to the power God has stored for us to receive. I know those are just words, and things are easier said than done but when you have that calling, that yearning to live a life centred around God, it will become easier to minimise and eradicate such distractions as a whole and remain focused on fulfilling the purpose, will and destiny God has laid out for you to achieve.

It all starts with planning: this could be setting time aside daily to read and study the Bible, speak to God, pray to God and worship God. Now such routines have been planned out and so we can then move to processing them by action. This could be sharing the gospel with others (online or in person), making a journal reflection on what you had studied from the Bible and what steps you will take to put the study into practice, making a daily worship playlist to help you remain in God’s presence at all times during the day, doing your part on the faith + work equation by working on the tasks needed to make your prayers to be answered. Once we have figured out the planning and have actioned it by processing such plans, we can now embrace such plans in full to enable us to live out our purpose. Purpose is so important, it’s the intention of living a life true to who you are and who you’ve been called to be by God, but we cannot live out such purpose freely without having a plan and processing the plan from thoughts to action. That’s why it’s just as important about the planning as it is about the blooming of fulfilling our purpose.

Every plan we have must be run by God as just because we have laid out this plan for our lives, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the final plan we must process to live out our purpose. God works in marvellous ways and at His appointed time it shall speak (Habakkuk 2:3). I won’t lie and say that I have not ever questioned God’s appointed time. I have shamefully done so on numerous occasions centred around not achieving a career goal at the time I thought I should have achieved it purely based on the fact of watching my peers achieve said goal and I was left behind. It took me a while to realise that their pathway isn’t mine to tag along on. God had already created my pathway, since I was born and every stumbling block was required to ensure I had grown in my character to embrace fully the later opportunities I got for my career as it was in that moment of time, God’s appointed time, that I knew I was ready to now achieve said career goals.

I had my own plans, but God’s plans always prevail. Trust in His plans for your life. It may not always make sense in the moment but trust me, in time it will. His plans lead to you living out your purpose. When there is a purpose, you can expect trials and turbulence to be sneaking around along with the tribulations of achieving said purpose. Don’t lost sight of the purpose because of the trials you may face. Grab your stepping stool and climb over those turbulences, keep climbing and keep going till you get to the stage of congratulations and tribulations. Keep God at the centre, keep leaning on His words, His grace, His guidance, His love, His peace. Stay in His presence at all times and watch what He will do.

2026 will be the year of living out our purposes. Congratulations to us all in advance for the goals we will achieve and the purposes we will fulfil.

Remember, Trust in the Lord, Love like the Lord, Walk with the Lord.TLW

who do we follow? thelawdsway