Cultivating Tomorrow

Linda and I were grocery shopping. There were three different moms with their children that we heard all throughout the store. There was a lot of yelling, swearing, and threats. Now I know, grocery shopping with small children can be a challenge. But it was breaking my heart to hear these kids spoken to in the way that they were. I thought, “No child should be talked to this way.”

Then, in the parking lot on the way to our truck, we heard another mom yell, “G__ f______ d____!” And on she went with a tirade of verbal blasting laced with expletives. As we drove by her wheeling the kids and groceries through the lot, I wanted to roll my window down and ask her, “Is this how you want them to talk to you in a few years? Because they will.” They most definitely will.

Our future is cultivated in the present. Who you will be, how you will be treated, and the things that happen to you…These things will, more often than not, be determined by who you are, how you treat others, and what you do today. This is true with kids, parents, marriage, siblings, work, finances, and so much else in life.

Once we get back to Proverbs in The Bridge Bible Reading Plan, we’ll see it time and again that our futures are largely determined by the things we do today. Our futures are farmed in the present. We are cultivating the next decade. If you scream at your kids, someday they will scream at you. If you blow your money now, you’ll be broke in your later years. If you sluff off at work, you’ll be out of work when the economy turns.

Certainly, sometimes bad stuff just happens to us. But even in those difficult times, how we cultivated life in the present to prepare for the future will either work for us or against us. What you sow, you will reap.

I did a funeral a few years ago. It was particularly heartbreaking. When I met with the woman’s offspring, they had a hard time bringing up positive memories of their mom. When she died, she had no friends, lived a lonely life, and died alone. After meeting with her kids, I could not help but think, “Most people die the way they lived.” That woman’s elderly years were cultivated in her youth. She blew all her valuable relationships and she died alone.

You are farming your future now. What kind of harvest will you be reaping?