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| Looking to the Future! |
A couple of weeks ago, I was looking through an old year book. The categories were very instructive: Most likely to succeed, Most likely to make a million dollars, best looking, and the list goes on. Needless to say, none of those prophesies came to pass. We all had our dreams, and most of us are now doing something different. Things were so different then. It was assumed that a few of us would go off to college, but most of us would either go to work for General Motors or stay on the family farm. Well, most of the family farms are long since amalgamated and rationalized, and then we all know about GM! But if things didn't turn out like we thought, and perhaps hoped they might, I can't imagine the vast different between the dreams and realities of the people of Israel and Judah in the sixth century before Christ. They had been defeated in battle and carried off into captivity. Their rebellions, what today we would call movements of national liberation, had been crushed ruthlessly. Their economy was not merely in shambles, it had ceased to exist. It was, as the kids sometimes say, a bad time to be them.
And in the midst of the loss of everything they held dear, God spoke to them through the prophet Jeremiah and said, “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Marry wives and beget sons and daughters; take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters and you may increase there and not dwindle away. Seek the welfare of any city to which I have carried you off, and pray to the Lord for it; on its welfare your welfare will depend. For these are the words of the Lord of Hosts of the God of Israel: Do not be deceived by the prophets or the diviners among you, and do not listen to the wise women whom you set to dream dreams. They prophesy falsely to you in my name; I did not send them. This is the very word of the Lord.” (Jeremiah 29: 5-9 NEB)
You see, there were lots of people who had a significant stake in agitating for factional rebellion and alignment in the Jewish community in those days. People sought to regain wealth and power lost, or to control the present situation, or to reinstate the glories of the past, or to control the direction of the future. Some were patriots and some were scoundrels, some were motivated by love of God and Country, and some were motivated by lust for power and wealth and celebrity. But God spoke plainly through the prophet. In a sense he said “Let go and let God.” I think it was Stephen Covey in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People who pointed out that many people spend most of their time fussing over things that are beyond their control, things which sometimes do not even affect them. How much happier we would be, he muses, if we would spend more time developing specific strategies for addressing real problems which impact us directly and over which we can assert some influence.
How many of us live in the past, attempting to wish what is not into existence? I once knew a man who loved to watch the movie “Gettysburg.” He would watch it over and over, hoping, he said, “that it would end differently next time.” Perhaps some of us are like my friend, always going back to the past to revisit what was done, and drawing motivation and anger and brooding darkness from things which cannot be changed. I daresay on the basis of today's Old Testament lesson that it is time for us to find God's healing for the hurts and disappointments of the past, and to live in the present, even as we look to the future, with some semblance of trust in God, hope in his providence, and optimism that we who are made in his image can and will find a way to live together with some degree of mutual respect.
But
like the Children of Israel, we are beset by forces that would cause
us to dwell in the hurtful past, remembering every slight and
questioning the motives of every good deed. Don't listen to such
folks. Whether they are on the television or radio or in the paper,
or they are your loud mouthed and opinionated brother-in-law does not
really matter. Whether
you voted for them or not does not really matter. Whether
or not you agree with them does not really matter. We
know who the people are who drag us down and make us negative. They
cause us to distrust our neighbors and hold onto grudges for
generations. Now this is not to say that we should live in a
Polyanish
world where we deny the reality of the evil around us. We are called
by the Scriptures to “be wise as serpents-----but
gentle as doves.” Some people are threats to the general welfare-
and until Jesus comes, there are plenty of good deeds done merely to
manipulate and control people. But we as Christians are called to be
realistic optimists, rationally assessing the nature of things around
us, and overcoming our emotional attachments which so often call us
to a sense of victimhood and anger.
You are made in God's image, rational creatures, with the capacity to love and be loved, and invited by God to participate with him in the very act of creation. Jesus said time and again “be not afraid, for I am with you.” He still says it, and he is with us all the days of our lives. So, don't let anyone, human or demonic, so wrap you up in past pain or ongoing sense of loss, that you are crippled by grief or anger or negativity or pessimism. It will only make you miserable and chase away those who would like to be your friends. Rather calmly and objectively face the realities in your life, and get on with the business of building homes and families and communities, and growing gardens, and passing on to the next generation that faith and those values which bind us together and bring us to greatness. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN
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