(Editor's Note: Today's Guest Writer is Parker Kathleen May)
Imagine your long-term plan. Maybe you want to go to college, trade school, or get a job right out of high school. What are you planning to do then? You might plan on getting married and having kids. Are you living in the city or the country?
Now, think of your short-term plans. Imagine what you’re doing this weekend. Are you staying home or going out with friends? Or will you study for that test you have on Monday or play video games all weekend?
We think we have things all figured out: what our day will hold and what we will do. But that thinking gets shut down in Proverbs 27:1, which tells us that we "knowest not what a day may bring forth.”
Not one of us knows what the future holds. Neither fortune tellers nor psychics can tell us what will happen no matter what they promise. Ecclesiastes 10:14 tells us that no man knows the future. The only people who could tell the future were prophets ordained by God because He told them or those who were given the ability to interpret dreams.
We all have a plan for our lives, but as stated in Ecclesiastes 9:12, we don’t even know when we will die. I know it’s kind of a morbid thought, but it’s true. It could be today, tomorrow, sometime soon, or some time far in the future.
We don’t know, but the Lord does. He knows what was and will come because He is the beginning and the end. And whether we like it or not, He knows everything about us. He knew about us before we were even born and what we will do (Jeremiah 1:5). He even knows when will die (Job 14:5). Because He’s all-knowing, we are told to consider God when we make plans for the day in James 4:13-15.
As humans, we try to go our way, make our path, and listen to what we want, when we should be listening to the Lord. Proverbs 16:9 says, “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.” The Lord is not going to lead us astray in our life. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that God only has good plans for us - not evil - and the Lord has a plan for each of us. He knows it, and we don’t. We can only have peace in the unknown if we abide with Him through reading the Bible, gathering with believers, and praying to Him.
It’s hard to think of your life as not your own to do with as you wish. Once you are saved, your life should gravitate towards God and what He wants us to do. We are still given a choice, but why would you choose to live a life away from the One who wants to do what’s best for you?
The future will always be uncertain to us. But what is not uncertain is God, His love for us, and the fact that He knows what’s best for our lives. We just need to have faith in Him. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not into thy own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Even though the future might be scary, we can be confident in what the Lord is doing for us.
