Sounds like a plan to me!

John Hatcher is pastor of Outreach International Center, 1091 South Jeff Davis Drive, Fayetteville, Georgia 30215. 770-719-0303.

What’s your plan for coping in 2005? For that matter, what’s your plan for succeeding in 2005? Do you have a plan?

Since most of us don’t have a plan, we fall into what’s convenient. For some a meal of pills helps them cope. They cope with dope. Some chill out with a swill of beer, perhaps more than a swill. Some plan to make it through another day with anger. They are mad as hell and their anger feeds their will to survive.

Success is another matter. It’s a bit different from coping. So, what’s your plan for success? Read another book on success? Right now there are umpteen on your shelves unread. Will you attend another seminar, jot down countless notes that you will never read again? Maybe you plan to be more aggressive in 2005. Heretofore you have ignored your own needs and have gotten nowhere. This year, you are going to be center stage. 2005 will be the year you will give yourself a high five.

Got another idea! Get into eastern-like meditation. Pure Eastern meditation focuses on self, but there is a meditation that focuses on God, his power, his provisions, his presence, and his Word. The introduction to 150 meditative psalms is a call for the man or women of God to live a meditative life and therefore experience success. Get out your Bible and read Psalm One. God knew we had to have some way of coping in “...a mad, mad, mad, mad world” (1963 movie).

God suggests in Psalm One that we seek the state of “blessedness.” Some may refer to it as nirvana and some may refer to it as “cool,” or “neat,” or “awesome.” It’s the state that enables us to rise above the mundane and have a little piece of euphoria.

God says there are three things you should not do if you want “blessedness:” Don’t accept the advice of wicked people. Don’t go where questionable people with questionable motives hang out. And, don’t be a part of any group that puts God down (Psalm 1: 1). Those are three things you don’t do.

Now, onto what is proactive: blessedness comes from delighting in God’s Word, commonly called the Bible. Millions of people delight in the Bible. It is still the number one seller of all books. More people read the Bible every day than any other book in the world. But....

More people attend seminars that dig deep into the Word of God. More people hear sermons on various passages of the Bible. Millions of Baptists, just to mention one denomination, attend Sunday School every Sunday during which time they study the Bible and its relevance to today. But...

Only a small percentage of us ever get into meditation. Meditation does not belong only to the Hindu or the Buddhist or the whatever. Our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, knew the tremendous value in mediation and at the very start of Israel’s worship book, God makes this definitive statement concerning meditation: to become successful and prosperous in life, you must meditate on God’s Word. It’s a day and night deal. Not just one seminar or one big hoop-to-do.

Read here God’s promise to those who meditate on his Word: “He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers” (Psalm 1:3 NASB).

Now there is a huge difference between just meditating on one’s breathing and meditating on the God-breathed word. One’s breath is fleeting. God’s Word is eternal.

So, it’s a new year. Time for new things. Give it a whirl. Start off with a verse of the Bible you know — like John 3:16, “God so loved the world...” Meditate on that one verse for about 30 minutes — perhaps the time it takes you to go to sleep. Think about each word. God. Who is God? Where is God? When is God? Why is God? How is God?

Now, what does this God do? He loves. How does he love? “So!” That’s how he loves. He “so” loves.

Meditate. Think. Let God lead you in meditating on his Word. After all, he inspired men to write it. And, after all, don’t you want to be a success in 2005?