I appreciate the value of organized details and applaud wisely crafted designs. I caution against over planning without production, intentions without action. Reading and researching have significance, but when does too much strategizing bleed into procrastination? What amount of stringent forecasting translates to missed opportunities? Someone said when anticipation to strategize outweighs action it’s time to change strategies.
I understand that not every brilliant idea needs to be implemented, but how many assignments are lost because over thinking leads to delay? Some concepts require waiting but do we (we, including the person at this keyboard) drag our feet under the rationalization that circumstances don’t align with our expectations (our, again, including the person typing the FROG blog). The wisdom lies in determining when we are supposed to wait, and when we are expected to plow forward.
Consider the profession of agriculture. There is much to learn about farming before someone puts his or her hand to the plow. The potential farmer has decisions about tending crops, orchards, animals, or a combination of producing. He or she assesses crop selection, land preparation, product market value, climate, and soil tests.
What happens if that aspiring agrarian buys land, equipment, animals, feed, and seed but leaves all purchases in barns and grain bins? When asked why the animals haven’t been fed or seed hasn’t been planted, the dream farmer responds that he or she will start an agriculture profession when it’s warmer, cooler, sunnier, or after vacation. The farm land then remains fallow and the animals are laid to rest, all buried under a harvest of drawing board sketches. The plot (of land) thickened but never took root beyond a field of dreams. Build it and they will come (‘but we’re not in Iowa anymore’ serves a load of corn as its logical ration). The land line became a land mine, a bumper crop dream dying in a nightmare of planning without production.
Haggai 2:19 (NKJV), “Is the seed still in the barn? As yet the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yielded fruit.” The last sentence of that verse offers redemption after actions and words intersect: “But from this day I will bless you.”
Lord, help me use wisdom when tending your field plans. Guard me from planting thoughts and saturating the dirt with watered down intentions. Teach me when to let land lie fallow, prepare me to plant crops according to your growing season. Show me when to till the soil, weed, and irrigate so I can share a bumper crop harvest with others.
Implementing without withering away, Christina