Not everyone plans for “golden years”.

At Envoy we are no strangers to hearing these words: “God will provide”. Yes, that is true: The Lord will provide and afford you the opportunities for you to make decisions that will impact your future. While God owns it all, he charges us with the responsibility for how His resources are used. Money, indeed, does not grow on trees and it is not mystically available for the devout. You have opportunities and decision to make, responsibilities to yourself, your family, God. Of course we have all heard of the miracles, money at rare times does come from surprising places: Inheritance, donations and sometimes even stranger places. Planning, however, is God’s directed way to prepare for your future and the Bible echoes that notion. In Luke 14:28-30 we hear about this truth literally and figuratively.

“For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, “This man began to build and was not able to finish.”

We must finish what we start; and how do we do that? We pray, we plan, spend accordingly and fund our ministry for the future.

Next week we will begin looking at what happens to good people – real people we know when they fail to plan for retirement. All of the stories will be real and every one of them deeply explores the failures of poor planning, mismanaged expectations of the wish to do more in the years past the paycheck than is financially possible.

In the meantime, I encourage you to head over to www.futurefundedministry.com and download a free copy of my newest eBook: Live with Meaning: Understanding the Power of Future- Funded Ministry. The book will challenge the way you view retirement and give insight into why it’s important to plan for the years ahead where the paycheck stops but the call to ministry continues.

Discovering our future together,

Bruce