Any man who plants mahogany seedlings at the age of eighty, knows he is likely never going to see that tree reach maturity. He can however be assured that under the right conditions, his sons and daughters may one day be able to prospect those trees for timber.
There is often great foresight required of anyone who seeks to walk and tow the line of greater good. The dream might not always be for you or those we love. It might instead be a dream that benefits many others who we may never know and who arrive here on earth many years after our exit.
This type of thinking arrests the upsurge of self-centredness and short termism that masquerades itself as purpose today. I will build me and mine. I will set up this and that for my own people and my own tribe. It devolves mostly into a patchwork of the parochial. Make no mistake, looking out for our own has its own place. Yet, every so often when that approach tips out of balance, we create a narrow-minded world full of competition and strife, where acceptance, tolerance and critical thinking suffer – and society suffers along with it.
The question to always ask ourselves as we commence an endeavour or seek out an idea, is: ” What will this idea do for those whom I have never seen, who I don’t know and who have not arrived on earth yet?”. That question can lead to a lot of interesting places and produce a harvest of timber for generations to come, in a way that ends up reflecting the character and imprint of God – The same one who made all of eternity and did not keep it to himself but opted to share it with us, even before we showed up.