Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, and Forever

When I saw the word “timing” for the FMF writing opportunity, my first thought was God’s view of our attempts at timing. Then, of course, I thought about market timing. That is an investment strategy where investors try to buy and sell financial assets based on predictions of future price movements. It is often risky and difficult, as many studies show that it typically does not outperform a simple buy-and-hold strategy.”

You don’t have to search very hard to learn more about market timing. There are good articles on Investopedia, Forbes, and The Motley Fool.

Top Two Investor Questions

The two questions that I seem to see more often than any other are: 1) What investment(s) should I buy?, and 2) When should I buy? The best answers are based solely on today’s knowns. But the problem with today’s knowns is that tomorrow can change everything.

Perhaps the best answers regarding “when to buy” are “yesterday” and “today” and “tomorrow.” Think about it. If my yesterday’s include twenty years ago the best time to buy most of the investments we own was 20 years ago. If my today includes an investment that I think has potential and the market is pessimistic, then today might be the best day to buy. Finally, if tomorrow the price drops even more, then that is the best time to buy.

The Pessimist: A Hazy Shade of Winter – Simon & Garfunkel

When I was a teen, I really liked Simon and Garfunkel. The sad reality of most of the songs Paul Simon wrote is that they were gloomy and without much real hope. “A Hazy Shade of Winter” reflects on life’s transitions and the passage of time, using the changing seasons as metaphors for personal growth and the inevitability of change. The song captures feelings of uncertainty and nostalgia. Here is how Simon’s song begins: “Time, time, time, See what’s become of me, While I looked around for my possibilities, I was so hard to please. But look around, Leaves are brown, And the sky Is a hazy shade of winter.”

The Most Important Thing: Today

If you don’t have a relationship with your Creator, that is the most important timing consideration. The time is “today.” 2 Corinthians 6:1-3 says: “Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, ‘In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

If you are a follower of Jesus, then you have a today opportunity: Matthew 6:34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Here is a helpful reminder for Investors from James: James 4:13-17 “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”

How to Identify a Follower of Jesus

They learn from yesterday, they redeem today, and they prepare for tomorrow without worrying.

Five Minute Friday

This post is part of the weekly Five-Minute Friday link-up.

All scripture passages are from the English Standard Version except as otherwise noted.