Tell Me Today About Tomorrow

One of the most widely read Christian books is “Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren. Why is this book so popular? Is it because people really want to know what plan God has for their lives? May be. May be not. Knowing the future has been the fascination of many generations. In Africa we have fortune tellers who use all kinds of tricks to prove that they can foretell your future. Horoscopes are popular in the west. There is a deep desire in every man or woman, for gender sensitivity, to want to know the future. Why do we want so much to know the future? I believe that human beings don’t like surprises. Not knowing what the future holds leaves us to a game of chance and sheer trust that the future will be what we expect it to be. To take the surprise out of life we spend hours and hours consulting books, fortune tellers, horoscopes, give it a name. Thousands of books have been written on how to determine your career. Psychologists boast knowledge of your future by analyzing your talents and passions.

What surprises me about these future speculators is not so much that they exist, but that very few of the predictions they make actually happen. You see, to me, something that is not a hundred percent accurate all the time cannot be truth. Truth has to be a hundred percent true at all times. There is no such a thing as partial truth, lopsided truth, some-how-true truth, or not-yet truth. Truth is true at all times. And that is why I believe that only God knows what our future holds. He is always true to himself. David, talking of God, says, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and you are intimately acquainted with all my ways.” David understands the futility of trying to figure out his future. If God has known him from before time, then the same God knows where his life is leading. Only God can know our future. He has always known our future. The psalmist says, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will lay hold of me.” God knows our life map. He has the power to change your course if he wanted to. It doesn’t really matter what the psychologists say. A friend of mine used to stutter a lot until God called him to become a preacher. He could not believe it. His first sermon in the pulpit was a nightmare. And so was his second, and third, and forth, until the church he was called to pastor started to grow. The church grew from one hundred people to a thousand in less than two years. He still stutters and the church is still growing. You see, the psalmist understands this when he says, “For You formed my inward parts; you wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well.”

So why worry about the future if someone is taking good care of it? Shouldn’t we all be minding our present business and rejoicing in the fact that someone has our best interest in mind? I think we should.