Laughing at Tomorrow

I’m both an analyzer and a planner, and that combination can cause me a lot of stress when I think about the future. I love to plan and look forward to things, but at the same time I tend to over analyze the plans I make and concern myself with all sorts of possible scenarios. Sometimes I find myself paralyzed when I have so many options but no clear cut choice. And sometimes I’ll foresee some tough stuff possibly coming for me or for the ministry and I’ll find myself consumed with the thought of it. It’s not healthy.

I was watching a youtube video making fun of a movie, “After Earth.” I’ve never seen this movie. It got ripped apart by the critics and of the few people I know who saw it they all said they regretted paying money for it, so I thought I’d watch the video clip on why it was so bad. And yes, from what was shown, it did look pretty bad. Ironically though, during the clip there was a quote that really stood out to me, “Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity. Do not misunderstand me, danger is very real, but fear is a choice.”

What a quote! To add to it, that same day I had been meditating on the verse, “She laughs at the time to come” (Proverbs 31:25). That is the mindset that true Christians should have: We can laugh at tomorrow. No matter what happens, no matter what evil may come, we can rest in the truth that God is with us (Immanuel) and God is for us (Romans 8:31) and God works all things for our good (Romans 8:28). So even if we may lose our job, struggle with our health, endure struggles in our family, or endure any other suffering, deep inside we can hold to the truth that God is good and we are citizens of heaven. Some suffering we may never understand while we are here on earth, but our time here is just a blink of the eye compared to the eternity of heaven.

Life is best to be viewed as an adventure. The times to come are to be laughed at. Struggles will come, but as long as we can manage to keep our heads on straight (accountability helps!) with our eyes set on God’s truth, we can learn to enjoy the big waves and the curvy roads rather than get sick by them. And in the moments of true suffering, we can still hold on to the fact that God is writing the story to our lives and it’s going to end well. It’s going to end very well. He is faithful!

 

*** I preached a sermon a couple years back called, “Responding to the Shipwrecks.” It goes along the lines of what I’ve just written and I encourage you to give it a listen.