Goals and Plans
By Linda and Richard Eyre

Note: Each week this column provides a short essay on one particular aspect or facet of the Lord’s personality and character.  It is intended that the reader focus on this facet while partaking of the sacrament this Sunday.  (Click here to read full introductory column.) Review previous columns by going to the What Manner of Man Archives.

For many years, I have worked in management planning, producing written documents that define and clarify an organization’s goals and that lay out a detailed plan for how to achieve those goals. I judge a plan by its completeness, its consistency, its clarity, its creativity, and its comprehension of all factors and elements. I operate on the theory that those for whom I write a plan will be stronger leaders because of the efficiency and confidence which comes from having a clear course to follow.

Thus I am an admirer of plans.

The plan championed before this world by the Savior was and is perfect. It is at once both incomparably complete and incomparably simple. It provides a wondrous physical sphere, complete with the elements and the agency necessary in the proving/learning process that progresses us toward our Father. Its patriarchal order establishes a linked eternal organization with each man “trunked” between his roots and his branches. Its laws shape discipline and character, and it its fall and its ransom build dependency-magnified love.

Perhaps part of the power and perfection of Christ’s leadership comes from the power and perfection of the plan, the plan of the Father which, through total commitment to it, Christ had in effect made his own. Part of the reason that he never faltered is that the plan has no faults. Nothing has been overlooked, no thing and no one has been left out.

We know that the Lord reaches all goals that he sets and we know through Paul that we can reach our righteous objectives if we have the Lord’s help (see Philippians 4:13).

It would seem that Christ, as Jehovah, planned the things which he did, creating each element spiritually before it was created physically upon the earth.

In trying to comprehend this facet of the Lord, we must not only think of his perception in the use of goals and plans, but we must also strive to grasp the magnitude of his cause — the totality of his commitment.

To try to compare Christ’s cause or plan to the cause and plan of any man is like comparing the earth to a grain of sand.

Daniel H. Burnham said: “Make no small plans … they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will never be realized. Make big plans … aim high and hope and work. Remember that a noble, logical diagram, once recorded, will never die, but long after we are gone it will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever growing consistency.

Christ’s power of leadership and his charisma come partly from his incomparable cause, the all-encompassing plan: “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”       

            Next week we will contemplate the most important leadership quality of all: example.