As adults we can more or less visualise the last week of moving home: cancellation of utility bills, the last of the last farewells, chocolates for the neighbours and agents, the big white removal van and men in overalls taking the family's belongings out of the space where you lived and worked. The surprise finds in and behind the freezer. The big clean of the empty house. Assuring you know where the flight tickets and passports and warmer clothes are, etc etc.
But...
How do you explain to an almost-3 year old that everything has to be carried out of your house and you are not going to live here anymore. From now on your bed and toys will be in another house in Germany. And a few months later, you will go on a very long flight to a country of which the Pappa and Mamma don't know the language. There is no way Josie can grasp any of that.........there is not much in her 3-year-old life's experience with which she can compare or measure. Her concept of time and geography is minimal, and in both and other concept-cases non-existent. I wish you could have seen Josie's face when she went into their virtually empty Buckinghamshire house yesterday afternoon and Pappa and Mamma's bed was all wrapped up in bubble-wrap! She was running around from empty room to empty room - very surprised and even excited!!!
It is not only toddlers that know little: even well-experienced, planning, independent, self-reliant adults "do not know what the day of tomorrow will bring", Of course we have a broad, general idea. Most of our plans materialise more or less. God has given us structures like days and seasons, stages and life-spans. The ant-example is given us in Proverbs to plan for the future- and Mrs Proverbs 31 who works hard and smart in and outside her home - and laughs about the day of tomorrow.
But..... have a quick glance over your own personal life's happenings and see how many times we say: "Oh who would have ever thought......I would be married to Gordon, we would become Jesus-followers, that we would emigerate, that we would have had THESE children and foster children, that we would have had to go through that hardship, have been in these careers, that costs and shares and temperature would have risen sky-high. The list goes on and on and on of unfolded major events previously unknown to us. Add to that a myriad minor details - previously unpredicted - taking place, even at this very moment, in our lives.
So we see, the serious limits of knowing the full picture of anything and we realise that this is not only a three-year-old Josie's lot. Her information about the move is only what is age-approporiate and to say the least, rather thin on the ground. What would a three-year old make of all the logistics and details of a move from the United Kingdom to Germany and on to Japan. Of finding a job in Auckland and work visa's and comparing and booking tickets from South Africa? The application is obvious. Neither do adults know what will happen tomorrow.
We live in time and space and cannot predict the future, no matter how dazzling our array of choices is. How many times do I say: "I know", when what I really mean "I guess". Admitting that I cannot predict the future is not pessimistic, but realistic. "I can accomplish everything and anything as long as I am positive and confident and think good thoughts" "Oh yes?!" James responds: ""Don't be a big deal - it is evil." Fact is: I do not know with any precision how anything or everything will pan out tomorrow.
Two clarifying lists:
1) Here is what I do not know about tomorrow and the future:
2) Here is what I do know about: tomorrow and the future as I contemplate God's character,my character and God's promises.
The truth is none of us knows what the future wil bring.
Boasting About Tomorrow
James 4:13-16 : "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.
D.V. - Deo Volente - if the Lord Wills - should be written all over our diaries, plans, strategies and futures.
My times are in God's Hands - Sovereign, Safe, Gracious Hands, because of Jesus. And what a radical difference believing this truth makes to how we face the future.
No, no more boasting and bragging about control over the future - such arrogance is labeled as evil in James 4! No more paranoia, nor romanticism, nor fatalism, nor laziness about planning and preparing. Humbly trusting, keep trusting, my sovereign, gracious and good God's providence and will. Remember to remember humility and that we do not know what will happen tomorrow.
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father; There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not; As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.
Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!
Summer and winter and springtime and harvest, Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness . To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!
"As your days are, so will your strength be"
