Now versus the long-term

Do the decisions you make today impact where you are heading? I am guessing most people would say yes, but I don't think that is how we live most of the time. We generally treat each decision we make as a single event without thinking of the direction we want to go. I see it in leadership and I've seen it in my life. Can I rationalize using my credit card to buy some shoes I really want? Yeah, most likely when I look at that as a single decision, I can easily convince myself that is what I should do. But if the direction I want to go is to be completely debt free down the road, then that one decision coupled with another just like it followed by another separate similar decision leads me somewhere totally different. Works the same in leadership. We look at a decision in light of where we are currently at without thinking about the direction we want to go. Finances are tight at the moment (when aren't they tight as a church?) so we make a decision not to hire someone. That person may have been who we needed to move us closer to the vision (direction) of where God wants us to be five years down the road. We sell out the future for the immediate. The thing with life is that there isn't a reset button. We don't get that lost time back. We can change direction, but the cost of those earlier decisions can't be undone. I want to invest my time and make wise decisions based on where I want to go and not for the momentary. I choose to get up early to meet with a friend because I know that over time that wisdom will impact me and who I am becoming. If I make the decision at 5:30 a.m. the answer is usually going to be to crawl back into bed for another hour of sleep. The immediate would distract me from the place I want to be. So are you making choices based on the direction you want to go or based on what is convenient at the moment?