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A few weeks ago the church that I have pastored for the past sixteen years honored Gale and I for our service to the local congregation. Pastor Appreciation Day is an annual event that they have blessed us with on a designated Sunday in October each year. It is a time when they poke fun at me a bit, but it is always done in good taste and enjoyed by all. And they always bless us with various gifts: meaningful cards, kind words, and gift cards. I have served there long enough for them to have a good idea of what I like; they know that I like those orange cards from a prominent home improvement outlet, and I was delighted to find a couple of them among my gifts of appreciation this year. But one thing that I have to remember about those cards is that they are not unlimited and can only be used until the designated value is exhausted. That means that I will get the most good out of them if I plan how I want to spend them beforehand rather than just going on an impulse-driven shopping spree that would quite possibly result in buyer’s remorse.

Each day of life is a lot like those gift cards—it is a precious gift from God that can be used only once. We are wise to do some planning before we go through each day least we squander it away with little to show for it.

There are days when I need to get numerous thing accomplished so I write my plans down to be sure that I stay on task as much as possible. I then have the reward of marking off each thing that is accomplished.

Whether we write it down or not, just as we make plans to achieve the tasks of the day, we need to have spiritual plans for each day. That is, we need to make sure that we plan God into our day. If we only think about how we can please Him on Sunday, we are leaving a huge void in the other six days.

In one of King David’s prayers recorded in Scripture, there are several things mentioned that make excellent plans to include in every day of our lives.

One thing that we can glean from David’s prayer that we should include in our plans for each day is that of recognizing that God is our source of help. He prayed, “O Lord, I call to You; come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to You” (Psalm 141:1, New International Version). Prayer was important to David and it was something that he exercised often. I am confident that we can safely say that he planned time with God into His schedule. We would do well to look at how we spend our days and see if we are including time in prayer, for it is one of those spiritual experiences that if not planned for probably will be missed more often than achieved.

David also prayed that God would help him to live righteously and avoid evil ways: “Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil, to take part in wicked deeds with men who are evildoers; let me not eat of their delicacies” (Verse 4). There are countless attractions toward evil that seek to grab our hearts. With God’s help, we must plan every day to avoid those things that would kindle our appetite to indulge in the delicacies of wickedness.

It is God’s desire for us that we stay focused on Him and pleasing Him. As the writer stated in Psalm 141, “But my eyes are fixed on You” (Verse 8). If our days and our lives are to be what God intends for them to be, we must plan to keep our eyes on Him.

Every day that God grants us is a gift from Him and He wants us to use it for His glory. We can only use each day once so we must use it wisely by planning God into every day that He gives us.