The future

A month ago a friend and I were talking about the future and wishing sometimes that we could see what lay ahead.

We want to control so badly the direction our lives go. We want to be informed! As if by some right, we deserve to know. But what are the limitations of this knowledge? Who would lay the groundwork for what is known and what is obscured?

Often we ask God for an explanation of our circumstances—begging…, pleading…, crying out for a chance to see what these experiences hold for us. When we ask however, it is usually out of pain, anguish, or confusion.

But let’s step back to that filter, how could we just know the one outcome? Wouldn’t we be exposed to more? Being closer to omniscient than any of us desire to be.

Several weeks after the conversation, I had this flash of the future appear in response to a thought/prayer in my head. It was at once definitely certain and utterly horrible in it’s pronouncement. The thought is one I will not share with anyone because, God help me, I hope it was only an example of why I don’t need to know everything.

We would mourn before we were supposed to… we would attempt to change future events, in general we would be our meddlesome human selves attempting to alter what stretches out before us.

So as not to end negatively, perhaps you could think of the things you wish to do, the legacy you want to leave behind and live it. Today.

Be ashamedly peculiar.

1 Peter 2:9-10 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own peculiar people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.