Blog # 361 Our Future

Blog # 361  Our Future

                Once  upon a time there was no penicillin, no radios, no automobiles, no plastic, no nylon, no paint, no incandescent bulbs, no smart-phones.  We take these and a host of other realities for granted today, but there was a time not very long ago when none of them existed, even in the dreams of people.  Yet all of them were possible  before they were thought of, invented, and bought into being.

               Learners discoverers inventors explorers all came on the scene, and new wonderful things began to happen.  But from the beginning all of what we know and have accomplished right up to the present moment was possible.  North America was very real before it was discovered by Columbus.  The possibility of 747's was very real before the Wright brothers were conceived in 1867 and 1871.

                 All of this is true of the marvelous facts we have discovered in recent years, and are about to discover in the years to come, about the universe, it size and age, about the earth and ourselves, about the human mind, and about the other realities for which we do not even have the words to fit their description because they are not yet carved out of what has not up to now existed even in our minds.
                And what we know of physical reality, that the actual is carved from the possible, is true as well of all reality, psychological, spiritual, emotional.  Possible to each of us at any time is joy or sorrow, health or sickness, holiness or sin.  The present is carved out of the future, the actual from the possible.  Some of what is possible for us will be realized or made actual. Some of what is possible will ever remain just that, never imagined, touched, heard, tasted, or seen.

                 This is the truth about ourselves, of our discovery and use of  the world around  us, and also of our relationships with other people and with God.  Nothing that exists on earth, and no one but God is complete.  Rather all creation is in the process of being completed, and we are in the process of becoming the persons we will finally be, carved from all of the possibilities that lay ahead of us.

                 Only God is totally actualized.  There  are no further  possibilities for God.  There is no past, present, or future for God. God simply IS, totally, everywhere, always. With us, and all creation, however, we were who we were, we are who we are,  and we will be who we will be, until that time and place and circumstance, in God's plan and will for us, we will be all that we will ever be.  It has to be that way for all but God.  There is nothing wrong with it. It is simply real, the truth about us.

                    And so we are on the move, unfinished, going somewhere,  part of a process, carving our eternal name out of myriads of possibilities.  Perhaps we do not think of it this way very often or ever.  And perhaps that is part of the reason some people are not growing, living with a conscious goal for their lives or happy.  Without such a vision and plan for our lives we would need a great deal of sound, color, pleasure, and thrills to keep our lives from becoming insignificant and boring.  This seems to be the way it is with many people today. Yet in spite of it all, the truth remains the truth and we are all carving our definite future out of the real possibilities that are there.      

                     Do not be afraid. God is with us, around us, and within us.  God  knows and loves each of us by name, helping us day by day, hour by hour, to discover Him as worthy of our total love,  in our appreciation of creation, in our sins forgiven, and in our love for one another .Thank you, Lord!