Peace Amid the Unknown of the Future
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People want to know the future. When we’re younger, we want to know whether we will marry and who the person will be if we do marry. We want to know what kind of work we will be doing as the years go by and if we will be able to reside in a safe place we enjoy. Will we have enough money to eat, be able to pay for our medical expenses, fulfill our dreams, and be able to have a restful retirement when we’re older? Amid so many unknowns, it’s helpful to turn to Scripture regarding both what God wants us to know and what he doesn’t want us to know when it comes to our future.
God does want us to know certain things about the future.
God doesn’t tell us everything about the future, but he does reveal some future events to us in his Word:
We know that Jesus is returning one day to consummate his kingdom (Matt. 24:29-51).
We know that tribulation will intensify, hearts will grow cold, and wickedness will increase as the Day of the Lord approaches (Matt. 24:9-14; 2 Tim. 3:1-9).
We know that God will never leave nor forsake his beloved children (Heb. 13:5), and no one will snatch them out of Jesus’ hand (John 10:18).
God doesn’t normally reveal to us what the specific future events of our personal lives will be.
True, through the prophet Isaiah God did tell King Hezekiah that he would live for fifteen more years (2 Kings 20:4-6; Isa. 38:4-5), but this is the rare exception and not the usual way God works in our lives. And when we stop to consider what it would be like to know the future like God does, we would hopefully think twice about the folly of such an ability.
We don’t have perfect knowledge like God has, and we aren’t perfectly good like God is. It would be impossible for us as sinful fallen beings always to use such knowledge for good and never for evil. Furthermore, our ability to function on a daily basis would be affected in countless ways by such knowledge. The dread of an upcoming normally unexpected tragic event would likely cripple us, and the joy of an upcoming normally unexpected happy event would no doubt be lessened by the lack of surprise.
We shouldn’t desire anything that God doesn’t desire for us to have. The Bible is clear that it’s sinful to seek to know the future via any means, including sorcery, divination, etc. (Gen. 44:5; Lev. 19:26-31; click here for more verses). Our desires are always to be in line with God’s will. Indeed, Jesus’ clear teaching in the Sermon on the Mount directs us not to be anxious regarding tomorrow as the current day is enough to handle (Matt. 6:34).
It’s good to plan for the future, even though we can’t know or control it.
The book of Proverbs does have much to say about the wisdom of planning for the future. One such verse is Proverbs 21:5:
The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.
Teaching that claims we don’t need to work diligently now so we have future resources since the Bible says God will provide for our needs is not interpreting Scripture in context. Indeed, such teaching actually promotes the sin of laziness (1 Tim. 5:8; 2 Thess. 3:10). Having stated the above, Scripture is also clear that we are not to trust in our diligent planning for our security but instead only in God.
Jesus made this point in the parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21), which tells of a man who thought he was very clever in storing all his wealth in large barns he built in order to secure his future. Yet, when he had everything completed and all his crops stored, God took his life that night. Thus, as we plan for future needs, we must do so humbly, not forgetting to be generous to others and always remembering that God has his plans for us that might be different from our own:
The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. (Prov. 16:9)
We need to be content in knowing only that which God wills for us to know.
We can’t control God; instead, we need to submit to his sovereign rule over our lives, past, present, and future. When we go back to the book of Genesis in the Bible, we read about how Satan used Eve’s desire to know like God knows to tempt her to sin against her Creator. The devil falsely claimed the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would make Adam and Eve “like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:4–5). After they ate the fruit, Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened—but not in the way Satan led them to believe. They painfully saw the shame of their sin and rebellion against God and attempted in vain to hide from him.
The result of Adam and Eve’s sinful desire to know like God knows was the fall of man from a righteous state before God. Going forward, all humans would have a sinful nature, be under the wrath of God, and live in a cursed world. Their only hope would be the God-man, Jesus, who would reverse the curse, obeying God perfectly as Adam failed to do and being the perfect once-for-all sacrifice for the sin of all who would trust in him alone for salvation.
We can rest peacefully because the future is ruled by God alone.
God alone holds our future in his hands, and he is all-knowing, all-powerful, and present everywhere always. We don’t need to know the secret things that God alone knows; we only need to know those things he has revealed to us (Deut. 29:29). We can cast our cares upon our heavenly Father in our prayers and rest peacefully knowing the future is ruled by God alone. As we keep God’s attributes of holiness, goodness, righteousness, justice, love, and mercy front and center in our thoughts, we can be comforted that all God is and does is good, even in the face of the unknown:
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
God wants us to know that all things work together for good for his children. God wants us to have joy in the knowledge that he is faithful, he loves us in Christ, he has a plan, and he will keep every single one of his promises. Knowing all this gives us true and lasting peace as we follow and cling to our Savior Jesus Christ, and nothing that is unknown can ever take this peace away from us.
This article is adapted from “Peace Amid the Unknown of the Future” from Beautiful Christian Life’s February 2024 monthly newsletter.
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