Your Future?

What if someone came to you and said “Listen very closely because I want to tell you a tale for I know your future”?

Would you? Listen? Would you believe them? What if they said you were about to do something incredible? And that the entire world would desire the things you would make and some would want to emulate you so they could be great too.  And what if they said you would continue for the rest of your life to astound and amaze people with the marvelous things you would do and that the outpouring of your love would affect many. And what if they said “now hurry up and get out of here. Go do the wonderful things you will do because in twenty one years you will die”?

What do you suppose you would focus on? Would it be the greatness and riches and joy filled experiences of these next few years? Or would it be dwelling on the time of your death? Would you plan and dream of how to be great and do so many heroic things to endear others to yourself? Would you set up foundations and have hospital and great buildings bear your name so others might remember how magnificent you were? Would you seek to draw people around you to mentor and instruct, to ensure a lasting legacy would always be yours?

Or would you perhaps become withdrawn and contemplate the heaviness of the few years you would have left. Dreading as each day makes the certain event draw unceasingly nearer. Each hour filled with the wondering of how it might happen. Each act of kindness, each gracious gesture, each thought measured to find a way to challenge the tale you were told. And would you build great research hospitals and buildings of science seeking to discover ways to extend life and benefit all of man. Would you draw the brightest and most talented and greatly gifted from all over the globe that you might possibly find a lasting legacy and a way past the twenty one years?

Which one would you be? And that is probably why God does not reveal our future times to us. What will we be, when will we go, what will be remembered as we lie on death’s bed. Yet he does allow us one glimpse, one promise of the truth and knowing of our future. He tells us where we will spend eternity.  Remember the “Then What?” question from just a short time ago? At each stage of life it is appropriate to ask “then what?”.And then the final time it can be asked is after you say “Well then I suppose I will die”. And Then What?

He has already told you. He told you because He knows and He desires for you to know. You will spend an eternity praising the God whom you love and who you trusted for the forgiveness of your sin. You will forever be retelling the story of how He drew you by His Spirit into a loving relationship of saving faith by His merciful grace. You will joyfully and faithfully minister as He directs for He has promised it would be so.

Or, You will spend an eternity separated from the one who loved you enough to die for you. In burnings and torments you will suffer as He described in His Holy Word. You will recall how He continually sent His Holy Spirit, warning you of what would be if you did not turn from your sin to His gracious loving arms of safety.   He showed you in the wickedness and evil of the God haters of this world what your end would be. He has already told you what your future will be. Not When or How or Who else will share it, but He has told you Why and Where. He wants you to know your future. He wants you to know that your future is your to choose. The why is your choice; the where is who you choose. Yes, He already knows your choice but still each day He is there persuading and dissuading, seeking to have you make the right choice, the best choice, now. In fact He knows the when. Twenty One years or twenty one months, or days or even twenty one minutes from right now. He knows. He wants you to know. He wants you to know and believe Him.

Still, it is Your future. Giving you the power of choice does not threaten Him at all. He is quite comfortable with giving you the truth and letting you decide. He really loves you. You are free to choose the future you desire. He is not wringing His hands or worried or fretting. He really loves you enough to say “You Choose”.