Imagining the Future Can Help Us Change the Present
One of my favorite writers is Nancy Gibbs. She writes occasional essays for Time magazine, and I could not help but “baptize” her most recent one appearing in the September 21, 2009 issue. It is entitled “Time Will Tell” and emphasizes that we can learn a lot from how the past saw the future—and imagining how the future will see us.
I could not help but be influenced by my own health issues as I read her insights. And I was also impacted because of a message I received via e-mail just minutes before I read the essay. A dear friend of mine was just informed by his doctor that he has cancer of the pancreas. Of course, there is no human cure for such cancer. This preacher’s prognosis and the prognosis given to me by my doctors reminded me that we are all terminal. Some have been given the gift of time to prepare for our leaving this world, but all of us should live with the realization that we are all going to make an exit someday. But in nodding to this truth, it does not mean that we become paralyzed.
Gibbs observes: “The past’s power comes from experience, the lessons it dares us to dismiss on the grounds that maybe things will be different this time. The future’s power is born of experiment, and the endless grudge match between fear and hope.” Acknowledging the swirling conversations and debates right now, she reminds us that “It’s tempting to just stand stock still and squeeze your eyes shut and wait for the moment to pass, or else hoard canned goods and assume the worst.”
I confess that I have been tempted to squeeze my eyes shut and pretend that bad things don’t happen to fairly good people. But as a follower of Jesus, how dare I do so?!
None of us know the precise details of the future for our personal lives, let alone the details of the lives of family and friends and for entire cultures. But knowing that ultimately the future belongs to God and to the faithful helps me respond to the present. Those responsible for the terrible events of 9/11/01 will not have the last word; God will. The sins of greed and avarice and violence will not have the last word; God will. Cancer, be it pancreas or in the form of slow-growing carcinoid tumors, will not have the last word; God will.
And so how does the future impact me? Let me reflect on this question in light of my immediate future, a future that has as an umbrella over all the statements found below the exhortation found in James 4:13-17, “Now listen you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”
Tomorrow, if the Lord wills, I am going to travel to Springfield and preach three times at West Side Christian Church.
Tomorrow, if the Lord wills, I am going to travel to Chicago to attend a U2 concert at Solider Field.
And in the days after, if the Lord wills, I am going to meet with doctors and other care-givers to discuss what needs to be done so that I can continue living as a responsible disciple of Jesus, be that discipleship role taking shape in the form of a husband, father, grandfather, friend, colleague, preacher, teacher, or writer.
And in the days after, if the Lord wills, I plan on traveling to Warsaw, Indiana and Richmond, Virginia, and Mahomet, Illinois, and Higbee, Missouri, and Morton, Illinois to preach and teach and even return once again to the Chicago area to see my new granddaughter, Eden, and take in a Bob Dylan concert or two or three since he is going to be camping out there at the end of October, and then some trips to Pana to see Carissa and Jocelyn, and spend time with family and friends.
And in November, if the Lord wills, I will celebrate thanksgiving with my growing family and perform the wedding of a very dear friend of mine.
And in December, if the Lord wills, I will celebrate the birth of Jesus with my growing family.
And in January 2010, if the Lord wills, I will return to the classroom as well as resume my duties as a dean in the Seminary.
And in the winter of that year on into Spring and Summer, if the Lord wills, I hope to preach and teach in churches and on college campuses and return in July to Haus Edelweiss in Heiligenkreuz, Austria to teach students from Hungary, my eighteenth year of being able to teach such servant leaders.
And in December of 2010 and into the early days of January 2011, if the Lord wills, I plan on leading a tour to Greece and Turkey.
I live with this “endless grudge match between fear and hope.” But hope is winning. Hope is the confident expectation that the promises of God cannot be anything else but true.
If the Lord wills. . . May his will be done in my life and in your lives this day and in the days to come, no matter how many days are given—his will be done: nothing else, nothing less, and nothing more.
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I don’t know if I heard 1000 sermons on the James passage that you quoted, that they would be as powerful as the words that you have written. Thank you for encouraging us with your words of faith. Thank you for not just shutting your eyes or losing hope. I still have a lot to learn from you both in the classroom and in observing the strength of your faith. I pray that God’s will be that the plans enumerated above would happen as you have set out.
My friend Joe has expressed very eloquently my sentiments, too. I echo his prayer.
Bob–
As usual the time you spent in Higbee this weekend was not only an intense learning time but a time I treasure and relive over in my mind. It amazes me that things that look complicated are quite easily understood when taught “how to study.” Over the years you have shared with us so much and, God willing, again next year. Thank you for the gift of a friendship and a love only a Christian can understand or experience. God Bless You.