Question: Just how much time do you spend in a given day pondering the future? Between thinking about what you want to eat for dinner and thinking about early retirement, my hunch is the future is on your mind quite a bit. When you think about things yet to come, perhaps your stomach does flip-flops. You may worry about how a changing culture, increasing crime, political unrest, and war will impact you and your family. Survey after survey reveals that you are not alone. Your fellow Americans may be living for today, but they are doing an awful lot of thinking about tomorrow. Depending on the study you look at, anywhere between 50-85% of the population believe in heaven and hell. That's good, right? Well, considering 1 in 3 also believe in astrology, ghosts, and reincarnation, Americans may just be hedging their bets.

So how should a Christian view the future? In Matthew 6:34, Jesus gives us this counsel, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Each day has enough trouble of its own." How can the Savior have such a cavalier attitude towards the future? For the simple reason that He holds the future in His hands.

Guess what? Because we know Jesus, we can also have confidence in the future. Tomorrow holds an endless existence of happiness and peace with Him (1 John 5:11-13). The short term future may indeed bring "trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword" (Romans 8:35). But because Christ lives in our hearts, "in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (vs. 37). As John declares, "Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:4).

Check your pulse. Are you anxious about tomorrow, worried about what the future holds? Stop, take a deep breath, and give away those fears to the Lord. "Never be afraid," said Corrie Ten Boom, "to trust an unknown future to a known God."

-William J. Sherman-