The future
I was at a fair the other day and was interested to notice, amongst all the different rides and amusement stalls, how many stands there were which encouraged visitors to learn about their fortune.
There was a lady who read Tarot cards, another who could tell your fortune by reading your palm; and a phrenologist who claimed he could read your character from the shape of your head. There were also quite a few astrologers offering to predict your future.
I wondered how many customers actually believed what they were being told. What if, for instance, one was told by a fortune teller some bad news. "You will lose your job in a year or so and you'll find it very difficult to find similar employment." or "You will soon fall terminally ill ..."
How would these people react then? Would they laugh it off as a bad experience? Or will they take the news seriously and let it affect their life?
How would we feel if we knew our future? Everything that was going to happen to us throughout our lives.
By not knowing the future, God shields us from many painful experiences which would destroy us had we known about them before they happened. Yet when they eventually happen He gives us the strength to bear them with courage and fortitude.
Just think for a moment about a bad experience that happened in your life. Let's say there was no way of either avoiding or changing that experience. Would you really have wanted to know about it years before it happened?
Now consider what Jesus had to endure for us. Ever since He was a child, He knew He was going to be betrayed, arrested, beaten, spat upon, tortured and crucified. Yet He willingly accepted His fate to do His Father's will and to forgive our sins.
© Copyright V Moubarak 2007