Proverbs 20:4

The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing.

Long term living is sadly lacking from our world. We think ‘long term’ means next year, the year after, maybe a decade; a few extend it out to a lifetime. But as a culture, with the short term we’re quite happy (in all practical terms; we malinger quite heavily as we work). We pile up an entire economy built on debt, despite God’s prohibition on that (Ex. 22:21-27; Lev. 25; Deut. 15), despite the clear fact that debt economies are snowballs of destruction rolling downhill—things whose appearance of health rests on making the eventual crash even worse. We kill children by the thousands, too, and we let our political systems abhor justice, layering half-solution on half-solution until all the compromise-points remain and little at all of the efficacy. All in pursuit of an OK today, a decent tomorrow, and….

God’s wisdom calls us to a view not half so constrained; God’s wisdom sees as small even those far-seers who plan out their whole lives (an exercise in futility, as a rule; the world’s if-then does not brook our prophecies). God’s wisdom calls us to a multi-generational perspective, nestled in heeding of eternity. God made man to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28), and He called us to a virtue which looks forward to long generations (Ex. 20:12). He calls us to prepare our children for holiness (Deut. 6:4-8; Heb. 12:1-6), and part of that holiness is that we will do the same. He calls us, indeed, to prepare for and look forward to a great fruit even on this earth (Is. 65:17-25), at the summit of which will come His completed reign (1 Cor. 15:26).

Yet, as I have already intimated, ‘long term planning’ can very easily be presumption. If we think we’re going to know all that comes from life in the next few years, let alone the next few decades, we’re fools. We can, with God’s blessing, foresee some of our challenges; we can, by that same grace, prepare ourselves for what will come. Sight of all that will come, however, is beyond us (Is. 44:7); we therefore cannot make long-term plans in the sense of determination.

Long-term thought, for the Christian, is not founded only in spreading ambition or planning out into the future. Assuredly, God calls us to prudence; this very verse (Proverbs 20:4), is such an injunction. We ought to prepare for what will come in what we do to ourselves, our relationships, and the world-part we steward, according to the guidance and knowledge He gives us. But simply starting the prep now or figuring out what we should do isn’t enough.

Long-term planning is not the true challenge. No, the true challenge is long term faithfulness: the doing. Long-term faithfulness, on the one hand, carries out in the day-to-day doldrum or plodding or excitement all which prudence and holiness requires; on the other hand, it accepts when the long-term plan has taken a blow from the actual future, compared to the future it anticipated, and it adapts that plan, even discarding the goals which seemed so central at first in the light of truer, more Godly priority. Such is the case of the man who sets aside, for now and perhaps forever, the aspiration he had of a farm or a particular business or artistic greatness, all because he must obey the higher duty—the need of his sick child.

In such faithfulness, we can all too easily find the long term retreating from our hearts; we know its importance up in the noggin, but down in the heart, when we decide what we’re doing right now and for the next five minutes, we really don’t quite care. I speak from personal experience. The remedy to this fault is God: to love the Lord above all, as a habit and a practice and not just a theory. The pursuit is oft difficult, but by His grace (Is. 26:12), we can practice holiness and thus love of Him until it becomes a more consuming part of our nature.

That means doing it right now, knowing that by doing it now, we prepare to do it next time. It means also repentance (and belief in absolution) when we sin.

The Christian, however, has an assurance no pagan can ever truly obtain. God has called us to a long-term view, one which looks to eternity and sees many generations, which builds many generations in order to look through them towards the eternity beyond generations (Matt. 22:30), and He has not called us to that without giving us the tools to accomplish it. Long term planning can seem foolishness to the pagan, who recognizes that the world will never let the plan survive centuries. For the Christian, though, God has given us the overarching plan by which we know that our works shall bear fruit, even if we don’t see quite what fruit. He has given us His law, His Word, and His Spirit; He has given us in law and in grace the plan of holiness, the plan which is at once for this moment and extended out to all generations. He has given us the blueprint, guaranteeing its success, and sent us forth with Himself at our side.

God bless.

Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.