Take these bones with you...

In the past 20 years or so, it seems to me that there has been a big emphasis particularly at church leadership conferences and the like, on setting goals and having short term and long term plans for the future. I’ve heard speakers say things like “if you want to be successful (their definitions of this word are often uncertain) then you need to have at least a 5 year plan and a 10 year plan”. Some have even suggested the need for a 20-25 year plan.
Now as much as there is an element of truth to all of this, I can’t help but wonder if it is much more important to have a 500 year plan.!!

I mean take Joseph for example, as he comes to the end of his life, he has already lived to the ripe old age of 110, and yet he is still looking several hundred years forward to the day when Israel leaves Egypt for good, and so he instructs his family that when that time comes, he wants them to carry his bones away with them. Now that’s what I call a long term plan.!!

Genesis 50:25 NIV
And Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath and said, "God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place."

Joseph was looking forward and had plans for the future that went hundreds of years beyond his own lifetime.
There are a couple of things that strike me as being particularly pertinent about this concept.
Firstly, Joseph wasn’t just thinking about himself and his needs in the here and now. Most of our plans whether for the next 5 years or even 10 years are all about us. We are thinking ahead and making plans so that we will be better off in the years ahead. But Joseph wasn’t even going to be around to physically see his plans come to fruition. And even though he had commanded his family to take his bones with them, I don’t think it was just for his own benefit. It was for theirs. He knew that in order for his children to have a long term vision, they would also need to remember the past. They needed to remember where they came from. They needed to remember their roots, and not just look forward to what the future could give them. Looking back brings a balance to looking forward. It reminds us that it has cost something to get to where we are now. Others have gone before us and paid a price. It’s not all about us.
Secondly, Joseph understood the power of the prophetic. When he commanded his children to take his bones with them, he was prophesying into the future. He was encouraging his children and their children after them to believe and to trust. In effect, Joseph saw the future, and he was trying to get his sons to see it as well. He was trying to get his sons to see the bigger plan that was behind all that had taken place. There was more to their lives and their existence than just shearing sheep every day. God had a plan, a master plan, and it was not just a 5 year or a 10 year plan. God had an eternal plan, and they were an integral part of it. There was going to come a day when they would leave Egypt, and when they did it would be significant, and it would be momentous, and when that momentous day came, he wanted them to be as much a part of it as he intended to be himself.