Planning Reinforces Time-Management and Intentional Decision-Making
To walk by faith and not by sight means to trust to do as the Word of God declares by incorporating holy, Biblical, principles into your everyday living (2 Corinthians 5:7). Set goals and prioritize your activities so you do those things that you intend to do. Steven Covey reminds us to “do first things first!” (2004). Make a list of tasks and then go back through and prioritize them in order of importance so you are able to get to the highest valued items first before you run out of time, and or become distracted. When you are conscious of what you what you want to complete for the day or week you get the chance to measure your tasks against your values to ensure you are walking along the path to goal accomplishment rather than taking the scenic route to a new destination. Have you tried doing this? If you have, you know it's easier said then done.
Tony Morgan says this about planning; “You get to decide where your time goes. You can either spend it moving forward, or you can spend it putting out fires. You decide. And if you don’t decide, others will decide for you.” Don’t just do any and everything that presents itself in your day but pick priorities from your predetermined values and prioritize these activities. Be disciplined to use your time wisely, and trust the leading of the Holy Spirit to point you in the right direction (by recognizing His voice as an echo of scriptural principles in your memory). Writing out a to do list and then prioritizing it will help ensure you tackle the most important items on your list first before you run out of time. The to do list can also act as an accountability checklist that you can review at the end of the day and help you plan for tomorrow. But, there is more to it than that. It goes back to evaluating your own perception and decision-making techniques and trying to be and act out Christian principles that please God, rather than aiming for self-pleasure; to not be "double-minded as James labels it (https://www.gotquestions.org/double-minded).
Boundary less and spontaneous actions lead to unproductive and unintended consequences (2 Corinthians 7:1, 1 John 1:6-7, Galatians 5:13, 16, 22-23, 6:8). Use an addictive, unhealthy activity for an example. Addiction, both consciously and unconsciously reorders your priorities because the pleasure is driven by you, for you. The insatiable desire to feel the adrenaline rush from participating in the addictive behavior motivates you to do this activity with the result of drowning out other priorities in your life. The addiction becomes the god who you serve. You probably didn’t enter into the activity thinking you could or would get addicted or that it would be so disruptive to your life. However, it became evident when, what seems like all of a sudden, the addictive behaviors turned into an all-consuming priority in your life, affecting not only you but your loved ones too. The strength of addiction retrains your mind and body so logic is lost, compulsiveness becomes a boundary-busting behavior and you are no longer compliant to anyone else’s standards but your own.
Position God (the Holy Spirit, D) at the center of your life so He can be involved in every activity,
rather than compartmentalizing Him.
(For example, only honoring Him when you're at church!)
If you are a Christian and you find yourself mismanaging priorities in this way (with thoughts that are centered around pleasing yourself, instead of your thoughts being centered around how to please God and others (De Dreu, C. K., Nijstad, B. A., & van Knippenberg, D. (2008), Jeremiah 29:13, 1 Corinthians 10:31). Having God as your first priority in life brings structure and predictability to your life because you gain the supernatural gift of the Spirit that forms a boundary marker in your conscious that alerts you to a decision point and moves you to overcome the temptation to act out a sinful thought. Being God conscious*, shifts your perspective and presents you with the option to choose God-honoring behavior instead of defaulting to sinful- self-pleasing behaviors. God-conscious behaviors result when you remove yourself and put God in authority as the ultimate director of your decisions. Consider this graphic and see if it help you to understand the concept of Godly decision-making. Jesus tell us in Matthew 22:37–39 to love our neighbor as ourselves. The only way to reach that goal is to love/honor God first. The goal is to be single-mindedly devoted to God and organize your life that way which shows you love God and your neighbor without being double-minded. It is from this perspective, generated from the heart, that you see your behavioral choices through the focus of your values and long term goals rather than making decisions based on self-satisfying urges (Romans 10:8-10, Matthew 6:33, 5:16, Proverbs 3:6, 1 Corinthians 15:57, 2:28-29). Elevating God to the final authority over your life shows that you trust His ways over your own.
Another way to understand addictive behavior is from the perspective of bounded rationality. Acting on the impulse to satisfy fleshly desires is unbounded rationality. It’s letting your five senses trump your sense of faith so you honor yourself instead of God. Christian behavior is bounded by God’s definition of love as demonstrated by His mercy and grace. God’s definition of love is bounded by His holiness and justice standards. A healthy Christian identity balances psychological with social decisions because of trust in God’s guiding principles, not what’s popular in society (See Appendix 1G page 2 for a summary look at God’s principles). Your Christian bounded rationality is seen when you voluntarily practice the truth of God’s Word (Galatians 1:1-7, 13, 25). When you practice God’s standards in public, you find your behavior to be well within the boundaries of societal law.
Accepting your human limitations and knowing the character, capability, and love of God invites this willing compliance and submission to His authority (James 3:14). Integrity to Christian standards results in a “sound mind” and social well being (2 Timothy 1:7). For a closer look at how Christian integrity produces well-being see Appendix 1S.
Life experiences are the best teacher. Consequences from decisions clarify the accuracy of your perception. Actions taken prove assumptions and beliefs. The lessons learned from decision-making build boundaries around future behavior. After experiencing life with an unhealthy addiction, awareness of consequences creates the motivation to change behavior. Because we live in a social world, human free will must be bounded by both human rationality and governing laws to avoid chaos (Simon, (1972), Rogerson, Gottlieb, Handelsman, Knapp, & Younggren, (2011)). Social well-being requires individuals to make intentional decisions to limit their own behavior to comply with these boundaries to prevent harmful and/or illegal consequences. It’s your willing decision to curb your free will to adhere to the standards that will help you heal from the boundary-busting behavior you grew accustom to as a result of your addiction. You are free to choose from a host of remedies for addiction, but you are not free from the consequence of your choices.