I learned a lot of things from my Papa, or at least he tried to teach me a lot of things.
When I was younger, I wasn’t always the most eager to listen. It’s really hard to teach somebody who doesn’t want to learn. Know what I’m talking about? And when I was a kid, I really didn’t want to learn.
But one of the things that my Papa always tried to teach me was that you need to think ahead. Know what I’m talking about?
He would say, Ryan, you need to think about the next step. He’d always say, you can’t just drift. You can’t just sleepwalk your way through things. You can’t just fake it till you make it. He said, you have to plan, you have to prepare, you have to look ahead.
The funny thing about grandpas is that a lot of times they’ll say things in a really blunt and simple and kind of folksy way, and you’ll write it off as old-timer nonsense. And then years later, you’ll find out that they were exactly on the mark. Know what I’m talking about?
He was trying to teach me with his grandfatherly wisdom what God is trying to teach us by his Fatherly wisdom in the Proverbs.
Proverbs 19:2 says:
“It isn’t good to have zeal without knowledge, nor being hasty with one’s feet and missing the way.”
—Proverbs 19:2, WEB
He says the absolute worst way that you can live your life is by just developing a desire and immediately going to satisfy it. Waking up and saying, What sounds good today? and then immediately diving into it. Letting our bellies rule our lives. Letting our appetites rule our lives.
Instead of saying, What is good for me? What will make me happy? What will help me? What will benefit me?
We just drift. We just sleepwalk. We just drift through life like we’re on a lazy river. We just react to things that happen to us passively. And then before we know it, we’re at the end of our lives, and it’s like we had no agency. No control.
He says that this impulsiveness, drifting, sleepwalking through life will ruin your life.
Present Orientation
In the field of secular psychology, they call this having a present orientation.
What is present orientation?
It is a mindset where your natural tendency is to only really think about the present moment. It’s a mindset where you only really think about the here and now. You only really think about the next hour, the next day. You’re not thinking about the future. You’re not thinking about your goals. You’re not thinking about your needs. All you’re really thinking about is what sounds good to you right this minute.
The future more or less does not exist, as far as you’re concerned.
As a 19-year-old, I was 100% stuck in a present orientation. So are half of the people on planet Earth. Actually, based on some studies, as many as 60 or 70% of the people on planet Earth could be described as present-oriented people.
In my experience, most of the people that you meet have a present orientation.
Most single people say that they have no idea what they want from a partner. They say, I want to settle down and spend my life with someone.
You say, Well, what kind of person do you want to spend your life with?
And they’re like, Ah, somebody hot.
Like, okay.
Most couples, based on data from almost every major marital counseling organization in the U.S., say that they have never talked about the kind of life that they want together. They’ve never talked about what kind of future they envision. That literally, prior to getting married or moving in together, they have literally never talked about whether they want kids, or where they want to live, or what lifestyle they want to lead.
These are things that are vital to your ability to hold together and build a satisfying life as a couple, but the overwhelming majority of couples have never talked about these things.
Data from another study found that the average low-wage worker—the average minimum-wage worker, the average person living paycheck to paycheck, the average person struggling with significant degrees of debt or bills they can’t pay—the average low-wage worker over the age of 30, that’s important, we are not talking about 18-year-olds right out of high school.
We are talking about people who’ve been in the workforce for 12 to 15 years, say that they have never thought to research lucrative fields to try to get into. It never occurred to them. They say at any point growing up, to look out at the job market, find what jobs tend to pay well, tend to have upward mobility, tend to bring success and security, and then pursue those.
They say the overwhelming majority of them claim that they just kind of drifted through school and then drifted into whatever job would take them and never thought to search for something better.
That is a present orientation.
Same thing is true for college students.
When I was in college, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. We’ve talked about this. I was a present-orientation kid.
But when I was in college, most of the other students were like me. Most of the kids I talked to had no idea what they wanted to do with their life. All they knew is that they were supposed to be in college, because that is what you do.
My generation really got kind of messed up and shafted and screwed over by the education system.
But I would say, Hey, it’s nice to meet you. What are you here for?
And they would say, My parents said I had to be here.
Say, I’m studying business.
I said, Oh, that’s a great major. Are you planning to go into business?
Say, No, I don’t know what I want to do. That just seemed like a safe bet.
They burned $80,000 for no specific purpose.
That’s a present orientation.
Same thing is true for most of the pastors that I’ve met.
The overwhelming majority of the pastors that I know say that they are unbelievably discouraged by their church situation, unbelievably discouraged by the people in their church, unbelievably discouraged by the culture of their church.
And every time I say, Well, what is your vision for your church?
They say, I don’t know.
I said, I don’t mean to be rude, but if you don’t have a vision for the church, why are you the pastor of a church?
No goal. No plan. No vision.
Why are our churches falling apart?
Because literally, the leadership in our churches are present-oriented.
Some social scientists theorize that present orientation is responsible for the overwhelming majority of the major struggles that we experience as Americans.
The overwhelming majority of long-term, chronic, severe poverty is at least in some way related to present orientation.
The overwhelming majority of relationships and marriages that fall apart are at least in some way related to present orientation.
The majority of addictions that run rampant—and I have been there too, I’m not talking about somebody else, I’m talking about me just as much as anybody else—the overwhelming majority of addictions that we find ourselves caught in, the cycle in, ultimately come down to our present orientation.
We know this substance is going to harm us. We know going to that website is going to harm us. We know this wildly unhealthy thing is going to harm us.
And yet we can’t get out of the feedback loop of living for this present moment—the future be damned.
Social scientists call that present orientation.
And present orientation has a tendency to ruin our freaking lives. Know what I’m talking about?
Present orientation will ruin your life if you let it rule over you. It has ruined so many parts of my life that it has taken years to rebuild and rehabilitate. And I would be willing to bet that if you are anything like me, it has probably done all kinds of havoc on yours too.
Drifting through life will ruin your life.
Thinking Ahead Leads to Flourishing
But here’s why we’re talking about all of this: It’s because the opposite is also true.
The Proverbs tell us that drifting through life leads to failure, but thinking ahead leads to flourishing. That sleepwalking through life leads to withering, planning for the future leads to thriving.
I love Proverbs 21:5. It says:
“The plans of the diligent surely lead to profit; and everyone who is hasty surely rushes to poverty.”
—Proverbs 21:5, WEB
And Proverbs 24:27. It says:
“Prepare your work outside, and get your fields ready. Afterwards, build your house.”
—Proverbs 24:27, WEB
Stop for a second and think about this.
One way to build a house is just dive straight in. Just go grab the things you have on hand and start hammering them together. And when you do that, you build a weird, aborted monstrosity that nobody can actually live in.
But another to build your house is to make a plan. You draw out your blueprints. You gather your materials. You get your crew together. And you go do it. And when you do that, you build a pretty good house.
You can build with a present orientation so your house falls down. Or you can build with a future orientation, so your house stands strong.
I love Proverbs 6:6–8. It says:
“Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways, and be wise; which, having no chief, overseer, or ruler, provides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.”
—Proverbs 6:6–8, WEB
It says, You know who humans should be more like?
We should be more like ants.
When I was 19, I didn’t give a moment’s thought to the future past about next week. I just drifted through everything and just reacted to every new disaster as it came on me.
But ants, man.
Ants go out far and wide. They gather food. They gather supplies. They bring them back to the anthill. They store them up. So when winter comes and they can’t gather anything, they’ve got plenty of food, plenty of supplies. They can survive the harsh season.
They say ants don’t need to be told what to do. Ants will stop, look, think, and then act.
They say humans could learn from ants.
Because ants understand delayed gratification.
Ants understand what’s called contingency planning. Where you say, My plan is to do this. But if that happens, I’m gonna do this. And if that happens, I’m gonna do this. And if that happens, I’m gonna do this.
I have a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C.
Future Orientation
In the field of secular psychology, they call this having a future orientation.
You could probably guess exactly where I’m going with this.
A person with a future orientation is someone who considers the future. It’s someone who plans for the future. Most importantly, it’s someone who prioritizes the future.
They make their decisions based on what they think is going to create the best possible future for themselves.
A person with a future orientation is someone who thinks about the long-term outcomes that they want in life and then they take very purposeful steps towards making those outcomes happen.
If you have a future orientation, that means that you go out of your way to imagine the future that you want, and then think about what it’s going to take to get there.
If you have a future orientation, it means that you are someone who is going to set concrete goals and then think through what you need to do to achieve them.
If you have a future orientation, more importantly than anything, you are going to look at the next five years, ten years, twenty years, fifty years, and say, Where do I want to be? Who do I want to be? What kind of life do I want for myself, for my family, for my kids, for my community?
And then you delay gratification in whatever ways you need to in order to make that happen.
You say, I want to retire at 60 instead of retiring at 90, so I need to put money away starting right now to make that possible.
You say, I want to leave my kids an inheritance instead of leaving my kids a devastating mountain of debt, and so I am going to build a concrete budget to make that possible starting now.
You say, I want to be running my own business, owning my own company. I want to be employing other people and creating jobs for other people.
And so I am going to spend as much of my free time as I can learning how to do that. I’m gonna go find somebody else who has run a successful business and see if they’ll apprentice me and mentor me and take me under their wing so that I can figure out what I’m doing.
You say, I want to marry somebody who is going to help me create a safe and stable and loving environment for my kids, because I didn’t have an environment like that when I was growing up.
And so when I date somebody, I am not just looking for the sexiest person imaginable. I’m not just looking for somebody I have fun with. I’m not just looking for somebody that I find interesting or exciting.
I’m looking for somebody with character.
I am not gonna let some scumbag POS put a baby in me. It’s just not gonna happen.
I am not gonna let some unstable and manipulative woman trap me.
I’m going to find a father for my children who is not going to go out for milk and never come back. I’m going to find a mother for my children who is not going to scar them for life.
I say, What kind of life do I want for myself?
And then you bend all of your decisions, all of your choices, all of your priorities, all of your values toward making that future, that life, a reality.
That’s called a future orientation.
And just like before, they’ve found that people who can learn to live with a future orientation end up having a vastly more fulfilling life.
Studies show that people who can delay gratification in order to achieve their goals almost always succeed.
Studies found that people who plan for things that could go wrong have significantly lower rates of anxiety.
They found that people who plan out each day when they wake up experience 33% less stress.
How do they measure that?
I don’t know.
The Harvard health team found that people who plan out their health routines in advance—so they plan out what their diet is going to be, they plan out what they are going to eat for this week, they plan out what kind of exercise they’re going to do—are 46% more likely to meet their goals, lower their cholesterol, get out of being pre-diabetic, prevent those coronary problems.
The Institute for Family Studies gathered up all the relevant data they could on the state of marriage and divorce in America, and they found that people who proactively do premarital counseling and premarital planning—who sit down and say, How do we want to raise our kids? What parenting style do we want? How do we want to plan our weeks? Do we want to have people over a lot, or do we want our home to be a kind of sanctuary? How do we want to handle our money? How much do we want to save? How much do we want to do this? How much do we want to spend?—end up having a 31% lower divorce rate.
The Financial Planning Association found that people who create a detailed budget—it doesn’t have to be complex or fancy, literally just has to be a budget where you write down what you make and you write down how it’s going to be spent—are 62% more likely to be financially secure than those who don’t.
And that remained true even when they factored in income levels.
A family of four who makes $40,000 but keeps a detailed budget is more likely to be financially secure than a family of three that makes $100,000 but just spends money without a plan—just drifts through their spending.
Planning Brings Rest
As weird as this sounds: Planning brings rest. Preparing brings rest. Looking forward brings rest.
The reality is that drifting through life has invited so much chaos into our homes, into our marriages, into our work, into our friendships. Know what I’m talking about?
Drifting through life is the thing that makes it complicated, not planning.
You worry about money because you don’t have a freaking budget.
You worry about how your marriage is going to make it because you guys still haven’t sat down and decided what kind of life you want to have together.
You worry about if you’re ever going to go anywhere in life because you still don’t actually know what you want from life.
So many of us came from families that were warped and messed up by generation after generation of drifting.
We drifted from one generation to another, and it left us hopelessly in debt. Hopelessly dysfunctional. Hopelessly beaten down. Hopelessly inert.
Some of us grew up in families where our parents taught us to be helpless. To be victims. To be pawns of whoever was in office at any given time. To be complacent in our poverty. To be abusive toward our children. To be impossible to be around. Impossible to have a relationship with.
We’ve had a running stable of wildly unhealthy partners—boyfriends, girlfriends—cycling through our house, doing terrible things to us, putting our kids in danger.
Because our mom did the same thing. Our dad did the same thing. Their mom did the same thing. Their dad did the same thing.
It feels like we are stuck in a family curse. Know what I’m talking about?
We come from a family that has drifted and sleepwalked into passing on one family curse after another to us.
But the gloriously good news that God’s Word has for us today is that it does not have to be that way anymore.
Because the Lord sees us.
And listen—He does not condemn us.
God is not condemning you for the ways you’ve drifted into self-destructive lifestyles.
God is not condemning you for the ways that you have sleepwalked into carrying on the family curse.
God is not condemning you for the ways that you have just carried on autopilot to the point that it has jacked up your life, set your kids up for failure, made you feel hopeless and helpless.
God does not condemn you for anything in your past.
He is reaching out to you right now—not with wrath, not with judgment, not even with criticism.
He is reaching out to you with grace.
James chapter 1 says:
“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach; and it will be given to him.”
—James 1:5, WEB
The Lord is reaching out to you to liberate you. To free you. To pull you out of the pit. To break your chains. To restore your hope.
The Lord is here to break every dark addiction.
He is here to raise you up and exalt you.
He’s here to glorify Himself by setting you free.
Let Him.
Break the Drifting Cycle
But all of those things are on the other side of learning to break the drifting cycle.
Listen—some of us are not gonna like this: Whatever your natural tendencies are, you need to become a planner.
Whatever your baseline personality is, you need to become someone who thinks about the future.
That does not mean that every moment of your life needs to be pre-scheduled. For some of us, that sounds like a prison, right?
That does not mean that absolutely every detail of your life needs to follow a rigid script. That sounds like hell on earth for some of us, right?
The reality is, some people are more naturally oriented towards planning, and some people are more naturally oriented towards drifting. There’s nothing wrong with either of those two things.
But whatever our starting point is, we need to learn healthy rhythms.
We need to learn to live the way God created us to live.
And the way God created us to live is proactively.
Here’s what that looks like.
1. Cultivate a Sense of Purpose
Before you plan, you need to think about your purpose.
When we drift through life, it’s because we haven’t got a sense of purpose.
How do you plan like Jesus?
How do you cut through the noise and the static like Jesus?
Ask yourself, What are my values? What do I think is important? What is important to me?
Note, I don’t care what’s important to your mom. I don’t care what’s important to your grandma. I don’t care what’s important to your life coach. I don’t care what’s important to your pastor—which is funny, because your pastor is me.
What’s important to you?
What do you value?
Ask yourself, What am I passionate about? What makes my heart come alive?
You do not have to live the same kind of life as your family of origin did.
You don’t.
You do not have to inherit the family farm.
You do not have to go into the family business.
You do not have to go be a doctor to make them proud.
You’re not in a Disney movie.
Ask yourself, What is the passion God has given me? What has the Lord uniquely crafted me to find unbelievably important? What is the purpose God has hand-knitted me to be drawn to?
Ask yourself: Ask yourself, How do I honor the Lord and find joy in my work life? How do I honor the Lord and find joy with my money? How do I honor the Lord and find joy in my marriage? How do I honor the Lord and find joy with my health? How do I honor the Lord and find joy in my hobbies? How do I honor the Lord and find joy with my friendships? How do I honor the Lord and find joy in my neighborhood?
And then you ask, what should my goals be based on my purpose.
2. Pursue Your Goals Purposefully
Now, you need to be unbelievably specific here.
Vague goals are not goals.
Vague aspirations are useless.
“I want to be rich”—that is a meaningless goal.
What kind of rich do you want to be?
“I want a nice family”—that is a meaningless goal.
What exactly do you want for your family?
Do you want to be a family that eats together every day?
Do you want to be a family that has some kind of family worship a few times a week?
Do you want to be a family where your kids feel safe and loved?
Do you want to be a family that puts more value on quality time together than on making more money so the kids can grow up affluent?
You need to be extremely specific here.
Let your sense of purpose put flesh onto the bones of your goals.
And then write them down.
You need to hold yourself accountable by putting pen to paper.
Write down your goals so that they are out there in the world, not just in your head.
And then sit down.
Take 30 minutes or an hour, or three hours—whatever it takes.
Do it in multiple sessions if you need to.
But write down exactly what you need to do.
Step one.
Step two.
Step three.
Step twenty-six.
Step fifty-nine.
Step one hundred and seventeen.
In order to turn that goal into a reality.
Ask, What do I need to remove from my life because it’s blocking me from getting there?
What do I need to let go of today so that I can have the joy I’m looking for tomorrow?
What do I need to deny myself right now?
What do I need to delay gratification in right this minute so that I can have genuine satisfaction in a year, in five years, in ten years, when I accomplish these God-given goals?
3. Ask for Help
And then, ask the people you trust to hold you accountable.
Tell your friends, I want to build a family like this. That means I need to marry a man like that. And if I start dating a man who is a million miles away from this, you need to give me hell about it.
Tell your friends, I want to give my future family financial security. So I need to go into one of these fields, because these are the most secure and lucrative fields that are out there right now.
I am not going to get distracted and major in feminist dance interpretation. No matter how passionate I get about it, I’ll do it on the side as a hobby.
But I’m learning computer coding.
And if I start to drift away from that course, I need you to love me enough to sit me down and put me back on track.
That’s number three.
The Pathway Out of Chaos
You were created to find your purpose, pursue your goals, and then ask for help from the people you trust.
That’s the pathway out of chaos and into genuine rest.
It’s how you cut through the noise.
It’s how you cut through the static.
It’s how you cut everything out of your life that is making you wither instead of thrive, that is making you languish instead of flourish.
And so God’s Word gives us an unbelievably simple calling, but it’s a calling that upends almost everything we’ve been taught by this fallen and broken world.
At the very core, what God is calling us to do is to search ourselves and think about what is truly important, and then throw ourselves into pursuing those things one step at a time until the chaos that comes from sleepwalking through this life has given way to the peace of taking control through God’s Spirit working in us.
Mount Zion Baptist Church - Louisburg, NC 
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