We don’t know what tomorrow will hold. We may make our plans, and prepare accordingly, but we just cannot know what will come. This is a truth of our lives because we are not in control of our lives. We can impact the future, but we cannot control the future.
I find it very common for folks to set their sights on future events that will provide the joy they desire, or rest, or peace, or comfort, etc. How many times do we set our hearts on the upcoming vacation, or the new job (and associated paycheck), or the pending retirement? Most of the time, we find our way to live the future we set our sights on and pursue.
However, just because it is common to find our way to a future we desire doesn’t mean we will find it the next time around. At some point, if we find ourselves blessed, we would realize a future that begins to narrow, and the nature of our pursuit of the future will change. This is because we recognize the blessing and begin to see more clearly the benefit of the future, how rare and precious the next moment truly is.
In C. S. Lewis’ fictional account of the demonic working to rip salvation from the Christian, The Screwtape Letters, letter number 15 to Wormwood (the junior demon) says in part-
“Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. …In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. …The sin, which is our contribution, looked forward.”
These words ring so true. Sin came into the world by looking forward, betting on what will come. When the present is replaced as most important in focus and purpose replaced by future expectation, we disconnect from the intersection with the eternal. We become distant from God.
In the present we prepare for the future by living in the moment, but we are not to live in the present only for the expectation found in the future.
Today’s verses come from St. Luke’s Gospel, chapter 12 verses 20-21 (ESV):
But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Dear God, we long for a future with you, yet so many temptations present themselves before us as we walk; renew in us a right mind and heart to find the joy of the moment given to us, and trust in the promise of our future home with you that we even now are preparing, through Christ Jesus our Lord. AMEN.