Can you think of something you were afraid would happen this year but didn’t? Or that you were afraid would not happen but did?
The sixteenth-century French “seer” Nostradamus was thought to predict for 2025 that “a great pestilence from the past returns, no enemy more deadly under the skies,” leading some to claim that a pandemic worse than COVID-19 would arise during the year. Others found in his writings a prediction of an asteroid impact with apocalyptic consequences.
He’s been wrong so far.
A hundred years ago, other “experts” predicted that by 2025:
- People would live to be 150 years old.
- There would be only three nations: the United States, the “United States of Europe,” and China.
- The Earth would utilize one common language.
- New York City would build triple- and quadruple-decked streets to accommodate its traffic.
- There would be world peace, a common world currency, and universal free trade.
And a seminary professor in Pennsylvania had the audacity to claim that people would use a pocket-sized apparatus for communications to see and hear each other without being in the same room. What a crazy idea.
“The end of the world as we know it?”
Speaking of communication devices, twenty-five years ago today, much of the world was focused on what seemed to be a calamitous threat. I remember well the “Y2K” (short for “year 2000”) scare: the claim that global computer and banking systems, power grids, transportation networks, and other critical infrastructure would fail when the year changed to 2000.
The reason: To save memory space, early computers used two-digit years (such as “97” for 1997), which could cause them to misread “00” as the year 1900 rather than 2000. No one was sure what might then happen, but there was no shortage of fearmongering. Time magazine ran a cover story titled “The End of the World As We Know It?” Survival guides proliferated. A movie imagined cascading Y2K catastrophes, from blackouts to nuclear meltdowns.
However, the day passed in relative calm, largely because governments and businesses spent an estimated $300 billion to $600 billion mitigating the glitch.
Now we have another computer cataclysm to worry about: Many older systems store time using a counter that maxes out on January 19, 2038. This could send clocks back to 1901, potentially crashing older software that depends on accurate dates.
If you’re like me, you’re thinking that this threat is thirteen years in the future, while you have enough fears to worry about today.
However, it’s understanding the true nature of the future that enables us to face our fears in the present.
The “uncertainty principle” of life
Everyone knows that the future is unknowable. What we sometimes fail to understand is that the present is unknowable as well. I could have terminal pancreatic cancer (such as former Sen. Ben Sasse has been diagnosed with) and not know it. Conversely, researchers could right now be perfecting treatments for my various physical challenges that will render them gone in the new year.
You may think your current job is secure, or you may think you’ll never find employment again. Right now, forces unknown to you could be at work that will render you right . . . or wrong.
Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle” demonstrates that physicists cannot measure both the position and the speed of a particle at the same time. Something like this is at work in my present circumstances: as I sit in my home study writing this article this morning, I am ignoring the upstairs furnace that may in this moment be catching fire. If I were monitoring it, I could not be writing these words.
And there’s the matter of attitude. Henry Ford is often credited with saying, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.” What you decide about your circumstances today will go a long way toward shaping them tomorrow.
“Courage is a choice”
I say all of that to say this: The omniscient God who created and transcends time is our best source for facing our fears of the future.
He sees tomorrow better than we can see today. Our Father can therefore prepare us now for what comes next while shaping our unseen circumstances for his greatest glory and our greatest good. All the while, he transfuses us with “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” when we trust our fears to him (Philippians 4:7).
The Christ who came at Christmas promised he would be with us “always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). His indwelling Spirit will never leave us (1 Corinthians 3:16). His all-conquering love will never abandon us (Romans 8:35–39). He will wade with us through every river and walk with us through every fire (Isaiah 43:2–3). He will open and close doors in accordance with his perfect will (cf. Acts 16:6–10) and lead us through each day until the day he leads us home (John 14:3).
Homer was therefore right: “All men have need of the gods.”
So name your greatest fear for the coming year and place it in his hands. Then claim his promise: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).
David testified, “I sought the Lᴏʀᴅ, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears” (Psalm 34:4). When we do the former, we can say the latter.
According to Winston Churchill,
“Fear is a reaction. Courage is a choice.”
What steps will you take to choose courage in Christ today?
Quote for the day:
“Christ liveth in me. And how great the difference—instead of bondage, liberty; instead of failure, quiet victories within; instead of fear and weakness, a restful sense of sufficiency in Another.” —Hudson Taylor
Our latest website resources:
Denison Forum
DAILY DEVOTIONS, NEWS AND INFORMATION 