What Lurks Ahead
It’s nighttime in the woods as you walk back to your campsite. Unfortunately, the lantern you’re holding only illumines the path behind you and the ground you step on. Right in front of you is pitch black. You could be inches away from your campsite, a cliff, or a DNR ranger in a foul mood and not know it until you take the next step.
This is what it’s like to live in linear time. We see the present and the past, but even the so-called foreseeable future is unforeseeable. We don’t have the option to stand still in the light of things we know. We are always walking forward into the dark, which is why we are so deeply and personally invested in what the future holds. We hope what lurks ahead will be better and fear it will be worse.
My view of the future is as dim as anyone’s but this I know with prophetic conviction: it will be worse. Any blessing or joy I experience now is tainted by the fear of its imminent removal. I like the way my hair falls over my eyes. I better enjoy it now before I go bald. I like the way Chuck Taylors feel on my feet but I will soon be paralyzed in a car crash. The present may not be very good, but this is as good as it gets.
Suppose the future happens to be better. Imagine I actually get the girl of my dreams, am able to create art at the level I want, living healthy, wild, and free. None of it will last. She will die, the art will go out of vogue, and my health will fail. The loss of these things will sting more for the joy of having once had them. As Mrs. Smith observed, “Happy endings are just stories that haven’t finished yet.”
There is little to satisfy me in the present and even less to comfort me in the future. Every step I take is in trepidation of the monster hiding behind the next corner.
Anxiety rises in my chest and I have to sit and quiet my spirit. The future is completely unknown to me. Tomorrow may hold everything I now want, or I may want completely different things. I may not be around for tomorrow at all. I do not know what my future will be like, and despite the lies peddled by motivational speakers, I can not control it. Too much of my present has been crafted by forces and events I could never have predicted. While my current decisions influence the future, there are greater Forces at work creating it.
“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”* I neither know nor can control the future, but God does both. We only see where the path has taken us, but God directs where it is going. Of course this would hardly be comforting, except in light of His character. When I see His past faithfulness, both in my life and the lives of so many others, it helps me trust His plan for my future.
I may not like where the path is going, but I doubt very much if that matters. I’m not sure where we came up with the idea that we can create our own path and its ultimate purpose is to make us happy we walked it. The truth is, God directs our path and does so for a higher and nobler end than our personal happiness. We may not see or understand what that end is, but we can trust it will be what it needs to be. God does not exist to create the pleasant path we want; if anything, we exist to walk the path He created.
Mrs. Smith is right. None of our stories will end happily on earth. Many are destined to end in violent and unpleasant ways. Everything we owned will be parsed among other people who will also die, and even the memories of us and our work will be forgotten. This may seem like a tragedy, but it would only be so if happiness was the goal.
C.S. Lewis said, “If you think of this world as a place simply intended for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable; think of it as a place for training and correction and it’s not so bad.” Earth is not the end of our stories. Ultimately for those in Christ, the future holds something far better than anything on earth: Home.
In the meantime, what lurks ahead on the path we have yet to walk is in the hands of a good and gracious God. My hope is not in my ability to know or create the future I want, but in God’s promise to create the future that is needed.
J.
*Proverbs 16:9
June 8, 2021