Should We Plan for the Future?

In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount,[1] he gives this startling advice: “I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25b) Then he adds: “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34)

Does this mean we should not plan for retirement or our children’s education? Are we not to save money for life’s little emergencies? I don’t believe that is what Jesus means.

If we go back one verse, we will get a clearer picture of Jesus’ meaning: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life. . . .” (Matthew 6:24-25a, emphasis added)

Jesus is redirecting our focus toward God and away from all that would distract us from him, especially money and possessions. We can love God and have faith that he will take care of us, or we place our faith in money and possessions. We cannot do both.

So the critical word in Matthew 6:24 is “worried.” Having faith in God and Christ means we don’t have to worry about the future. We can still plan for it, so long as we remember that ultimately our future is in God’s hands.

We should also remember the wise words of James the Just, who reminds us that we never know what tomorrow holds for us:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For you are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”

(James 4:13-15)

So while we are planning for the future, we must also be flexible, for God may have something different in mind. When I was a child, I wanted to be a dentist. In high school I dreamed of being a professional trumpet player. When I enrolled in college, I thought I would pursue a career in accounting. God had something different in mind, and I ended up in law school.

As I was growing up, never did I imagine I would ever join the military. Before I graduated from law school God led me to join the Navy.

After about eleven years on active duty, I planned to make it a career and stay for at least twenty years. God had other plans, so I left active duty after twelve years.

When I was twenty years old, I fell in love and got engaged to a young lady I had met about six months earlier. I might have married her, but God had other plans. A few years later I met the love of my life. We have now been married more than forty-two years, with two children.

So feel free to plan for the future. But also be devoted to God and receptive when he has other plans. For we never know what God might bring our way tomorrow.

[1]. The Sermon on the Mount is in Matthew’s Gospel, chapters five through seven.