A Look into the Future
“Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in privations, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:10 KJV
As one’s eyes open to a new day, big dilemmas often stand there. Their gloomy stares are the thoughts of what this day will bring. Do we eagerly jump out of the bed or do we give some serious thought to just pulling the covers back over our head? Is that old alarm clock our hero or the villain? Are we filled with dread and worry or is our day one of anticipation and hope?
Most of us would probably answer those questions with: “It depends on the day.” It may look like a very good day ahead. Maybe it is a big sales day or a report is going to make us look really good. Maybe it’s the weekend and we have big plans for the day. Don’t we wish all days were like those?
Then there are those days when a report is due or we are summoned to the boss’ office. Of course, there are those weekend days when the basement needs to be cleaned out or the car needs to be washed. Those are the days we wish we could delay as long as we possibly can.
So, what makes our spirit and our outlook appear different? It’s plain to see that all days serve some purpose. They all are going to happen whether we like it or not. Each day has the potential to contaminate the next day, week, month, or even year. Other days are marked on the calendar with big red circles so we won’t forget them. We can’t wait for those to get here.
Our history has been one of great change. It’s hard to imagine a life without cars, electricity or even running water. When our country first started out, there were only horses to ride. There were no switches to flip so the lights would come on. If you wanted water, you had to dig in the ground and find it.
In times of old, if you wanted a bath, you probably had to find a river to take one in. If you wanted to eat, you either grew it, raised it, or bartered for it. There were no hospitals to care for the wounded or sick. You were lucky if your child survived into its teens.
Even in my lifetime there have been great accomplishments. Computers used to fill rooms and did less than this laptop I’m using to write this blog. The internet was something the military was working on. Blue laws kept stores closed on Sundays.
Everything, from the time you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night, is probably completely different now. Yet, at the stroke of midnight, there are still twenty-four hours in each day. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. We have sunny days, rainy days, cloudy days, and days with snowfall.
Despite all our advances, we still have droughts. We can’t predict the exact path of a hurricane. Living within the laws of natural science is still a requirement. There is no button we can push to make it warm outside, make the rain go away, or mute that annoying person from talking to us.
It is in the moments, that we still haven’t conquered, that we can glean some of the feelings of our forefathers. Take, for instance, getting cold. Say it is freezing outside. What is one of the first things you want to do? You want to find heat, right?
So you walk into your house. It’s warm, but it doesn’t automatically take the coldness away as soon as you walk into the door. Now, imagine walking into your house and there is a nice fire burning in the fireplace. That would be very pleasant, wouldn’t it?
There is just something comfortable about finding heat when you are cold. Add some hot chocolate and friends, and you have a memorable evening. Think back in our history. There were no furnaces or heat pumps to warm your house. No, you had to have a fireplace and wood.
Even today, sitting around a fire seems to offer us comfort. I don’t think our ancestors were any different. There is just something very special about sitting around a fire.
When you peer into the Bible, you often see lives that face the same issues we do. Every single Bible character woke up and there was a day in front of them. Many looked forward to their days, or at least during the time they were highlighted in the Bible. Others seem to suggest that they would rather just pull the covers back over their head and skip a day or two.
Most Bible characters are just like us, though. Their outlook for their day varies from day to day. I’m sure the first day Adam woke up next to Eve, he couldn’t wait for his day to start. Now, move a little bit further into the future. After Adam got kicked out of Eden, I’m sure his opinion of those days wasn’t as exciting. Throwing the pick at the stubborn soil would lead to days that were less than desirable.
David had a great day throwing rocks at a giant and listening to the cheers from everyone when one of his shots leveled the mighty man. Then other days he feared King Saul would find and kill him.
I’m sure even Jesus had up and down days. God did send Him to be human after all. He had days the crowds gathered in awe and lined up for a chance to see Him or be healed by Him. Those days could not have compared to the day Judas betrayed Him.
This Bible character probably had more written about his up and down days than any other Bible character. He would have days that were highs. Then he would have very low days. He had days where he was confident and he would have days he was extremely frightened or discouraged.
The phase of life we are going through can also affect our vision of the day. If you are a child, Christmas can be the most exciting time of year. As a parent, Christmas can be very stressful. Can I find the “new” must-have toy of the year? Is there enough money in the budget so I can even afford to buy all the gifts my children want?
When our children move out or get older, Christmas presents a different set of problems. Our children seem to move from appreciating gifts to expecting them and that expectation is usually cash. It might even feel like the only reason they stop by for the holidays. The heart wonders where these children have come from. Where are the sweet little babies that were so easy to shop for or please? Why has excitement been replaced by expectation?
Even worse, our children tell us, “I don’t need anything.” A parent seems to have this built in need to give something to the child that they will treasure. The hope is to build a memory. By denying the parent this opportunity, the parent can feel a separation from the one they raised. The memory stream has stopped.
Then one day, grandchildren come our way. Forget everyone else, we are going to fill Santa’s sleigh for him. We want to be the one who provides that perfect gift and just to increase our odds we stack more gifts in front of this grandchild than anyone else.
Those grandkids grow up, and then their Christmas request just turns to money, too. Gone are the days where we watch them glow as they open that perfectly wrapped gift to see the prize that was inside. When they were really young you rarely heard a thank you for your present, but you didn’t need to hear one. You could tell by their excitement that they appreciated it. Now, their half-hearted thank you is followed by a quick return to whatever they were doing before they opened that card with the money in it.
During tough times we often look for things to take our mind off our daily struggles. One of the methods we use is to find some form of entertainment. Hopefully, this will give us a recess from those tough situations.
I wonder what they did in days of old for entertainment. They didn’t have things like televisions or movies. Even in my lifetime there have been major advances in entertainment. When I was younger we just had black and white shows on TV.
If we wanted to change the channel on the TV we had to get up off the couch. Then we had to exercise our hands by turning a knob, to change to one of the few channels that was available. The TV also had these metal antennas that you had to move around to get a clear picture. That process could be very frustrating at times.
Finding someone to talk to was harder when I was younger, too. Our phones were stuck to the wall and the cord’s length restricted the distance you could travel. Good luck on having a private conversation. Having a very long cord that could stretch into another room or asking everyone to leave the room were your best hopes for that to happen.
So if you step back even further in our history it might be easier to understand why this was a very effective tool a President used. Times were extremely tough. The word to describe most of their days was a feeling of dread. Hope seemed to be hidden under some heavy boulder.
It was a very tough time in our nation’s history. The jobless rate was 25%. Then another 25% percent either took pay cuts or could only find part-time work. Fifty percent of our children did not have adequate food, shelter, or medical care. The gross national product fell 50%.
To relieve our stress, the board game Monopoly became very popular. At least in this game, you could pretend that you had some money.
Walt Disney came out with the movie “The Three Little Pigs.” Many believed the big, bad wolf in that movie represented the depression they were experiencing. The three little pigs represented the average workers who were having a very difficult time keeping that wolf from harming them. Oddly, it wasn’t until the three pigs worked together that they were able to defeat the wolf.
The Great Depression started in 1929. In March 1930, President Herbert Hoover said that we had “passed the worst.” It would be nine years later before the Great Depression officially ended. Most credit World War II for finally lifting us out of it.
In the election of 1932, the nation grew tired of President Hoover and threw him out of office. New York Governor, Franklin Roosevelt, became our new President. How was he going to calm the people down and help them get through these very rough times?
Roosevelt came up with a very ingenious idea. What two things, at that time, did Americans turn to for finding relief from their daily lives? First, they often sat around a fire with family or friends who were experiencing the same rough times they were. These people found that it helped to have people they could share things with and who they felt were on their side.
The second thing Roosevelt looked for was the best way to get his message out there. There was no TV, internet, or social media in those days, so he used the most popular media available: the radio.
Franklin Roosevelt started his Fireside Chats eight days after he became President. He had first used them in 1929 when he was Governor of New York. Arriving at the radio studio about fifteen minutes before the broadcast, Roosevelt would greet members of the press. Then he would start his radio address with either “My friends,” or “My fellow Americans.”
In total, there were thirty of them. These Fireside Chats lasted between eleven to over forty-four minutes. Two of them were not recorded, so I’m not sure of their length. They were always one of the most popular radio programs. The radio audience averaged 18% during peacetime and 58% during World War II.
Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats worked. Our problems didn’t go away right away, but people felt like they had someone on their side. FDR knew that was an important first step in getting us to a better place. His vision never got clouded by the struggle.
When our Bible character was a baby, his days started out with much uncertainty. The fact that he lived into adulthood might have been a miracle in itself. That misfortune soon turned to fortune and fame. Despite that luck, a restless spirit left him longing for answers. Like many of us, peace was having a difficult time finding a permanent residence inside him.
Our Bible character decided to take matters into his own hands. His patience had run out. Since it appeared nothing was happening, or not at the speed he wanted it to happen, he pressed the issue. When our speed and God’s speed don’t match up, we usually make bad choices. Such was the case with him.
Then his life fell apart. He had to convince himself that a life of solitude, far from his vision of where his life was supposed to go, was where he was actually supposed to reside. Dreams were things that happened to others, not him.
Many, many years would pass before a contentment came his way. He had convinced himself that his dream really didn’t matter. Every day it got easier and easier to bury it so far down inside himself that it almost feared coming out again.
God will take you to that place of contentment. He will let you learn that your dream is really not that important. When He gets you to that point, He will then show you that your dream is important in His way. He will ask you to take your shoes off and witness His awe. The impossible will become the possible.
Lately I have been in an all-out search to discover how to find the meaning to my days. Often it seems like a futile attempt to find an answer that is just not there. It’s like trying to see the wind. You can feel the wind as it blows. You can see things move around by its presence. On a hot day it can offer cool relief, but on a chilly winter day it can make a very cold day even colder.
The winds of a hurricane, or those pushing a forest fire, can be deadly. What good would a wind powered turbine or windmill be without a breeze, though? Who has an answer for the wind? Who has an answer for our days?
As Moses stood on Mount Nebo, he knew his life was coming to a close, or at least his life here on earth. He peered across the plains and saw the dream he had for his life. Before him laid the Promised Land. Moses’ dream came true.
Although it was Moses’ dream, his feet would never touch that Promised Land. That really wasn’t important. Moses’ dream was to get his people and himself to the Promised Land. With God’s help that’s exactly what happened.
It wasn’t until Moses stood on the top of Mount Nebo that he realized that each day, the good ones and the bad ones, had all served a purpose. Each of his steps wasn’t about the present, it was about the future.
Sometimes our days are really trying. Around the holidays, stress seems to hang out on every corner. What makes it worse is the feeling that, of all the times of the year, the holidays should be the least stressful. Why can’t it just go the peaceful way we want it to?
We magnify those holidays, but in a sense, each day we wake up, is the same type of day. Often we see the darkness of the morning, not the brightness of its potential. Problems become roadblocks, not stones we step over. We forget that paved roads had to be gravel roads first.
Prayer: Dear Mighty Father, When my eyes awake let them warm my heart to the day’s potential. Lift up my spirit higher than my circumstances. Renew my drive so that one day I will see the smooth highway my life has given me. Amen.
