Financial Fitness

Financial planners try to convince people to look down the road instead of simply focusing on today. “Don’t think in terms of this year,” they will tell you. “Think and plan for 30 years from now.” The wise person does indeed think ahead, but far more than 30 years ahead. More like 30 million years ahead. Someone once said, “He who provides for this life but takes no care for eternity is wise for a moment but a fool forever.” Jesus said it this way: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36).
 

The Bible frequently reminds us that life on earth is brief: “[God] is mindful that we are but dust” (Psalm 103:14). Our earthly bodies are called “tents” (2 Peter 1:13, NIV), temporary dwelling places of our eternal souls. David recognized this and sought to gain God’s perspective on the brevity of life. He asked of the Lord, “Show me, O Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life…. Each man’s life is but a breath. Man is a mere phantom…he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it” (Psalm 39:4-6, NIV).

When a friend discovered she had only a short time to live, she told me of her radical change in perspective. “The most striking thing that’s happened,” she said, “is that I find myself almost totally uninterested in accumulating more things. Things used to matter to me, but now I find my thoughts are centered on Christ, my friends, and other people.”
 

Do we have to be facing death to gain such a perspective? If that’s the case, then we ought to think often on the words of Hebrews 9:27: “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.” We all have our “appointed time” to step out of this life and into eternity.

Moses realized that true wisdom flowed out of understanding that our lives are short. With that in mind, he asked the Lord to help him number the days he had on earth.

“As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or if due to strength, eighty years…for soon it is gone and we fly away…. So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom”

(Psalm 90:10, 12).

I encourage you to number the days you estimate that you have left on earth. If I live as long as my father, I have about 6,000 days left. This has helped me become aware that I need to invest my life and resources in efforts that will count for eternity.