How do you define "Long-Term"? One year? Five years? Ten years? Perhaps forty or fifty years?
From the age of 25 or 30, long-term planning typically suggests a plan to accumulate resources during your most productive years that will ensure your financial independence at least until the age of 90, perhaps 100. Components of the plan must consider the desired lifestyle you expect to maintain as you grow older, how much money must be accumulated to provide you with that lifestyle, the required savings per year that you must set aside to reach that financial goal, the devaluation (buying power) of your savings because of inflation, and the projected return on your savings (if any) to help off-set inflation and grow your principle. Long-term planning must also include managing the risk of unexpected life events that could easily wipe out your carefully devised plan. In addition, the plan should include how, and to whom, you wish to distribute your assets after your death. These are the topics you might expect to hear from a financial adviser as you seek guidance on how to ensure financial independence throughout your lifetime.
Planning for the "long-term" should be a part of our thinking, but you must be careful that your plan is not one that is motivated from fear, or a desire to plan your way out of trusting God. Jesus was clear in several of His parables to point out that the more independent you become, the less you will trust God for your needs. Trust is the key component in any relationship; without it, the relationship is lifeless.
In our last lesson, I suggested that you consider three words as you contemplate the topic of "long-term planning": PERSPECTIVE; PRUDENCE; and PURSUIT.
PERSPECTIVE: For the Christian, life is but a test, a trust, and a temporary assignment. The Christian is only passing through this temporary life as we head for our eternal home in Heaven. We must maintain an eternal perspective as we plan our earthly lives, for even our best plans are established with limited knowledge of our tomorrows.
"Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them." James 4:13
PRUDENCE: We are promised that there will be trouble in this world. Most of those troubles happen unexpectedly--an automobile accident; the loss of a source of income; an unexpected sickness or injury. Risk is a reality of life and must be managed. We are wise when we plan for the unexpected. This form of long-term planning is not motivated from greed, fear, or a lack of trust, but from being responsible and prudent.
"Prudent people see trouble and hide, while the simpleminded go right to it and get punished." Proverbs 22:3
PURSUIT: Just as with the man who sold all he had to buy the field with the hidden treasure (Matthew 13:44), when we truly realize the treasure that awaits us in our eternal home, our earthly lives, and the priority of what we pursue, will forever be changed.
"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13
You don't have to fear the outcome of your tomorrows when you walk in God's purpose (will) for your life today. As a prudent and responsible steward you can trust God to meet your needs in every way... and more.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." 1 Corinthians 13:12Below are the slides from the lesson. Next week, we will move to Chapter 8: "Teaching Children about Money."
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