Here's to the Future
This probably comes as a no surprise to no one, but I'm a fan of Spongebob Squarepants. More specifically, I'll watch just about any episode from the first 3 seasons (the ones that came out before the first Spongebob movie). There's one early episode where Squidward attempts to hide from Spongebob and Patrick, but ends up getting stuck in a freezer for 2,000 years. When Squidward is thawed out by Spongetron (a future Spongebob) and learns that it's been 2,000 years, he freaks out and just keeps saying "future".
While we may never find ourselves trapped in a freezer for 2,000 years, I think just about anyone can identify with Squidward in regards to freaking out about the future. A common question people ask others is "Where do you see yourself in (X) years?" Oftentimes, that number is 5 or 10 years, but the amount of time doesn't matter too much. When we start thinking about our future, all sorts of agonizing questions pop up. What will my life look like? Where will I be? What will I be doing? How much will I be making? Will I be married? Will I have kids? Who will my friends be? Will Giannis Antetokounmpo have led the Bucks to a NBA title? Will The Simpsons still be making new episodes? Okay, so most people probably aren't asking those last two questions, but just about everyone wonders where they will be in the future, what they will be doing, and what that looks like. And that can be scary to think about.
It is scary to think about the future because we don't know what it holds. We may have an idea of what our future holds, but we can't be sure. The word "future" itself is broad as well. That could be tomorrow, 5 years from now, 25 years from now, 100 years from now, 500 years from now, etc. Normally though, the future refers to at least multiple years from now. However, we don't even always know what our future holds the very next day.
At the end of my freshman year at Baylor, I woke up early on a Tuesday morning thinking that I would take a shuttle to the DFW airport and would be back home in Virginia for dinner that night. However, I learned on the ride up to the DFW airport that my flight from DFW to Boston was delayed to the point that I would miss my connecting flight to Richmond. At the time, my sister happened to be finishing up her senior year of college in New Hampshire. So when I landed in Boston, instead of getting on a connecting flight to Richmond, I got on a bus and stayed with my sister in New Hampshire for the night. Though unplanned, it all worked out for the best and I got back home the next day. Life has a way of throwing curveballs at us when we least expect them.
In the instances where we can't predict what will happen tomorrow, it can seem like a daunting task to predict what will happen years from now. 5 years ago, I was in the final months of high school. If someone were to have told me then about what I'd go through in college, where I'd be today, and all the adventures I would have along the way, I wouldn't have believed them. It would have been too much for me to comprehend. Likewise, it someone were to tell me today what would transpire over these next 5 years, I don't think I could comprehend it all.
I don't know what my future holds. Writing that out can seem scary. But there is good news: I don't know what my future holds, but God does. He knows what my future holds tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day...True, it is easy to say "God knows my future and has a plan for me," but it can be a lot tougher to truly believe that -- and trust in His plan, whatever it may be. There's a good passage where Jesus talks about the future (Matthew 6:25-34). Matthew 6:25 says "'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?'" At the end of the passage in Matthew 6:34, Jesus says "'Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.'"
Since I am on the subject of the future, I'd be silly not to include the famous movie trilogy Back to the Future. In the second film, Jennifer, Marty's girlfriend, gets a note from the future saying Marty has been fired. However, in the third and final film, that message disappears and the note becomes a blank piece of paper. When she asks Dr. Brown what it means, he says "It means your future hasn't been written yet". Our future is still unfolding, filled with new adventures and stories to one day tell. We may not know what those are yet, but God does. And it just might include spending an impromptu night in New Hampshire with one's sister.
Since I am on the subject of the future, I'd be silly not to include the famous movie trilogy Back to the Future. In the second film, Jennifer, Marty's girlfriend, gets a note from the future saying Marty has been fired. However, in the third and final film, that message disappears and the note becomes a blank piece of paper. When she asks Dr. Brown what it means, he says "It means your future hasn't been written yet". Our future is still unfolding, filled with new adventures and stories to one day tell. We may not know what those are yet, but God does. And it just might include spending an impromptu night in New Hampshire with one's sister.
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