Aug 16th. 2020: Being Afraid of The Future

 Are You Afraid Of The Future? - Joy! Digital

 
I had a good conversation with a young mom about their life on the island of Vancouver recently. She and her husband have one boy and have been thinking about the second one. She was honest in sharing with me about their apprehension in thinking about bringing another child into this world, considering everything that has been going on. What is the world going to be like when the kids grow up? She is not alone in asking such a question.

Maybe we have more fear about the future if we think that we need to be in control of our human destiny. Many things tell us that we are not in control. That doesn't sit well with us. We seem to assume that we should know better, and yet the evidence tells us that we might not know much about how human hearts work. We now face our dilemma. Our faith in humanity is fragile, and our need to believe that we are strong enough to correct any wrong. We might realize everyone has taken a step of faith, either in God or in people and things created by people.

Maybe we have become more afraid of ourselves and others as we witnessed the parade of lies, deceits, and greeds in trying to solve the threats of Covid-19. Can we really trust anyone and anything they say? The barrage of noises has become overwhelming for many of us. So we do the next best thing. We become indifferent toward almost everything we hear and see. A father told me recently that he doesn't know what to think and what to do when making his decision about either sending his kids to school or keeping them home. He got some information from the school and didn't believe that they know what they are telling him.

Maybe we find ourselves at the crossroad between the knowing and the not knowing. We start asking questions about stuff that we used to think we knew and had a clear understanding of them. Many people I have talked to recently started asking the question about what God is doing when bad things seem to happen everywhere. These are folks who used to tell me that the notion of God is absurd and unnecessary. It is not a bad beginning though it appears to start with a contentious presupposition. As far as I am concerned, a negative reaction is far better than no reaction at all.

Proverbs 11: 1
"The LORD detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him."
Luke 16: 10
"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much."

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