Ingredients For Strategic Thinking 

Strategic thinking requires both revelation and self-conscious awareness. The Holy Spirit must reveal to you why you need to think this way. Remember what Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 16, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this unto you but your Father who is in heaven.” We need a revelation of strategic thinking!

Strategic thinking is the understanding and self-conscious awareness that gives power to what you do. It is one thing to do something by accident; it is another thing to be self-consciously aware of what you are doing. Self-consciousness adds power of infinite measure to what you do. You cannot reproduce an accident, but once you become self-conscious and understand the mechanisms and the principles behind it, you can intentionally recreate the same phenomenon. That is why we must become self-conscious in our thinking. Strategic thinking is ultimately the understanding, desire, and ability to marshal and steward resources over time and effectively carry out a task. 

Take the example of a prism. If you hold the prism up to the sun, you can focus its light and start a fire. You can take diffused heat and make it highly focused and multiply its power. God sees, plans, and applies all His resources into a specific focus, just as He did in Christ. That is what God wants for all our lives and ministries—the focusing of our life force so that we move a specific thing in a pre-planned direction, and it produces anticipated, purposeful results. That is effective life and ministry. Through this focus of energy and resources, we can accomplish the goals God has established by the Spirit.

In addition to revelation and awareness, we need the ingredients of time and key relationships. Strategy requires time, and time requires committed relationships that operate with longevity. It takes covenanted people working together over time to produce anything that lasts, be it family, church, ministry, or a business. Strategic thinking is beginning with the end in mind. 

Thought of the Day: We must become self-consciously aware of our investments of time and energy.