I Want to Know the Future
Not really
To know what lies ahead. That is the question. Uncertainty is ambiguous. Ambiguity is uncomfortable. As a result, we want to determine how to find out what lies on the road ahead.
To know what lies ahead
I can’t see! The fog is too thick. Wrecks and pain and problems. Disappointments come when we do not expect. Unrealistic expectations create more issues than facing and accepting reality.
That is the question
Questions like this remind me of a simple child’s story. There was a man who was fishing. He caught a fish and inside were three coins. The fish started talking.
“With these three coins you are granted three wishes. What do you want?”
The man was astounded at the request! “First I want to know what everyone else is thinking.”
“Granted,” said the fish.
The man was amazed. He could read people’s minds so easily. He knew what they were thinking about him and everyting else. “Oh, no!” I did not know they thought that!” His eyes were opened to the negative whims of people he respected, to others who were jealous of him, and yet some that he thought were his friends but he could read their underlying thoughts through their deceptive smiles.
He went back to the fish.
“I don’t want that one,” he said, and threw it back into the water.
The fish replied. Ok, you have two more wishes. What else do you wish to have?”
The man knew quickly what he wanted. “I wish that I could know everything in the world instantly so that I would not have to study so hard.”
“You have your wish come true,” said the fish.
Suddenly, he knew everything! How things were made. What elements were contained in the earth, in the human body, how the digestive system worked, what foods were made of, the Periodic Table of Elements, the geometic theories of the ancients, and more. How happy he was to be a super genius! Puffed up by his superior knowledge, it was so easy to not be curious anymore about the world, about life, and about himself. He lost the joy of discovery. He went back to the fish.
“I don’t want this one either,” he complained. He threw the coin back into the water. I thought that would make me happy to know everything, just like I hoped that reading people’s minds would cause me to be more satisfied. Here. Take this back, too.”
“Ok,” said the fish. “Then you have one last remaining wish. What one remaining wish do you have on your mind?”
“I want to know the future!” said the man. “That way I will know what decisions to make before I step out the door.”
“Your wish is granted so that you now can see into the future!”
“Wow!” he exclaimed, ready to face the world ahead with bold courage. Instead, he was faced with the reality of wars, famines, explosions, murders, tragedies, death — all the pains and problems in the world more than the joys and highs of life. The end was coming. He became afraid to even step out the door.
So, he went back to the fish again.
“Here, I do not want this wish. I am done with wishes and fishes. I like my life just the way it is,” and as he threw the last coin in the water, the fish swam away.
Uncertainty is ambiguous
He walked back into the joy of accepting the reality that he did not wnat to know what others were thinking because of the evil in their minds. He did not want to know everything all at once because he lost the thrill of being human discovering. Last, he could not be satisfied by knowing the future because of the reality of evil in the world.
Because we do not know what is ahead for us, we can become very anxious about the world, our circumstances, and cling too tightly to what may not be in our best interest. In other words, accepting what is, in our own life creates more inner peace than living in the past or in the future. Be present in the present.
“The past is history. The future is a mystery. The present is a present.”
Ambiguity is uncomfortable
“The Spirit then compelled Jesus to go into the wilderness.” Mark 1:12
God tests but He does not tempt. Knowing that God leads us through the troubled waters, through the path like Pilgrim’s Progress, into situations that are uncomfortable, is paradoxically comforting. Being led by the Spirit of God is humbly surrendering to the will of God the Father.
Paul was also constrained by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem in Acts 20. He did not know what was ahead — that he would be arrested, jailed, and sent to Rome. We do not know what lies ahead. That is God’s protection.
“So the prospect of suffering of imprisonment and of death is not enough, he says, to divert him from his course, nor to deprive him of a security that is grounded in the will of God that is experienced by the power of God and that is lived out in the presence of God, and it is that strength of personal conviction and devotion that we find here in Paul that gives credibility to verses such as Romans 8 when we read Paul and he says. now what about it when there’s nakedness or Pearl or sword or all of these things and then he says in all these things we’re more than conquerors.
What is that? What do you get that from Paul, the only person is able to say that is somebody who is God here in his own life. I don’t care my life is really that significant in terms of the most precious thing in existence no it’s far more important that I finish the course, that I run the race, that I get this over, with, that I do this and when that is settled then the rest.” — Alistair Begg
Trusting for the future
“And we do not know what lies ahead.
The way we cannot see,
but One stands near to be my Guide.
He will show the way to me.
I know who holds the future —
He’ll guide me with His hand.
With God things don’t just happen.
Everything by Him is planned.
So as I face tomorrow
With its problems large and small,
I’ll Trust the God of miracles
And give to Him my all.”
Do you want to know the future?
Not really. I only want to be in the will of God moment-by-moment, led by the Spirit of God to do the will of God, what He wants, when, where, why, and how He chooses. Because He created me, He leads me for His ultimate purpose — to become more like His Son Jesus Christ. This earth is the pre-game on the field of life. Heaven is my home. I know where I am going in the future after death takes this fleshly body and gives me an everlasting one. Now that’s eternal security for the future that I really want to know.