day 624: Perservance For The Future

"It was in the midspring, during the fourth year of Solomon's reign, that he began the construction of the Temple of the Lord. This was 480 years after the people of Israel were delivered from their in the land of Egypt."

In business, we just can't think day to day, week to week, month to month, or quarter to quarter. We have to have a long-range vision and plan to execute if we are going to continue to move in a constant and direction. However, this is harder to do than say. Forces are always moving against and toward us to take off of our plan and to deviate from the vision. It's not easy to stay consistent and to follow through. Most of us would never think of what we do on our job having much, if any, bearing on what the company will be like in 50 years. I have a friend who likes to ask people in their jobs if then can name the person who was in the job before them, and then before them, and then before them. Unless they are CEOs, the line of questioning usually stops at the third generation question. Better yet, ask someone who was the first person in the company to be in the job and they won't have a clue. We don't think that long, even though we should. If we did, then we might find that we would make better decisions and investments of our money, resources and time. It's just not in our DNA to think much further ahead than the lifetimes of our offspring and when we do think about the future it is usually bleak or fatalistic. When did Hollywood create a movie about the future that was not post-apocalyptic? Yet, it is easy for us to make the past look good. To be the best we can be, we need to be able to look into the future and then deal with it for the hope and the optimism that only the future can bring.

Solomon built the Temple from what should have been started 480 years earlier, even though he wasn't around then. He planned and laid the foundation that nearly 500 years of history would be built upon. He gives an example of what it means to grasp a vision and then stick to it, without waver. Maybe what some of us need to do is start looking a little harder now for the future and then setting a plan to get there. If we decide that that future in our careers and life are to be days, weeks, years and decades that we will invite God to walk along and inside of us then we will find that we can see a bright and exciting future that others will want to follow us towards. The walk we make to the future with conviction and perseverance is a powerful message to others who are looking for a reason to want to see the future. Think today about what that futuristic direction you can begin taking today and will follow through with as Solomon did with the Temple. Start building that future today. Another day of waiting gains nothing.

Reference: 1 Kings 6:1 (New Living Testament)