I'm not someone who is superstitious. I don't take chances, a mantra I've sadly learned from experience (by way of one too many dog-eared Euchre hands). The blind squirrel occasionally may find a nut, the dog a bone, and even the fool now and again can toss up a kernel of wisdom (perhaps you're reading one right now). In short, when it comes to predicting the future, it's easier said than done.
There have been those few, lucky individuals who have proved that assumption wrong. Take Leonardo Da Vinci, a Renaissance man, a visionary, whose brilliant ideas far preceded the technology and prowess of his day; designing canons, tanks, and flying machines whose articulation wouldn't reach fruition for centuries. Back then he had his naysayers, but genius is often said to walk hand-in-hand with lunacy, though for how long is another story.
Babe Ruth once predicted the future in game 3 of the 1932 World Series. Pointing towards center field, according to legend, he motioned confidently the intended destination of his swing, and sure enough The Great Bambino called his shot, thumbing his nose at the opposing team's dugout as he galloped pass first. Personally, I prefer Mark Messier's guarantee of a Game 6 victory in the 1994 Stanley Cup playoffs, but to each his own.
Most of the time, however, such guarantees and predictions often fall flat, if they even get up at all in the first place. Take H.M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Bros, who in 1927 wondered with fervor following the emergence of audio in motion pictures "who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" Another person who didn't like obtrusive noise was the head of Decca Recording Company, who told an upstart band from Liverpool after kicking them to the curb that "we don't like your sound, and guitar music is on the way out." (That band happened to become mildly successful across the pond, you know them today as The Beatles.) In fact, all you have to do is watch the evening drawing of the winning Daily 4 lotto numbers to realize that many across your viewing area are probably realizing their failed predictions on their own sofas at that moment.
Calvin didn't play the cards of chance. He went as far to say that God's providence leaves no room for fortune or fate, no matter how trivial or trite the circumstances. He went as far to say that "every year, month, and day is governed by a new, a special, providence of God." (Institutes I.XVI.2) After all, if our Heavenly Father tends to the fragilest jasmine, the most whimsical snowflake, and the tiniest sparrow then surely how much greater His concern for His human creatures whom He created imago Dei? (Matt. 10:29-31)
Such details often elude our sights, escape our notice, and fail to capture our immediate attention, especially in a day where at any particular moment an individual is bombarded with a hefty half-dozen forms of advertising, all of them obsoleting the past and presenting the present for purchase or obtainment in the immediate future. When all is said and done it's no wonder that more and more youths these days, between Television and Twitter, Film and Facebook, Microsoft and music, are being diagnosed with some form of attention-deficit disorders. By now, perhaps you yourself have stopped paying attention to the ramblings of this author, who's fairly distracted himself by the drone of an iPod at this moment.
Jake Eppinga, long-time pastor now past, in his last entry in The Banner wrote of the future in the waning hours of the final days of his long and eventful life. He was 90 years old, his body cancerous and decrepit, his wife distant and forgetful, and most of all, the future certainly uncertain. A man of God, over 60 years of life a pastor, fully admitting his fear of the future.
I fear dying.
Yet, in the face of the future there is always hope. There is always faith. There is always the intimate and imminent plan of a loving God whose grace is sufficient for each and every one of us. As the old children's song goes "He has the whole world in His hands"; He did yesterday, He does today, and He will have it tomorrow and all the days to come. Feast or famine, sun or rain, 7-2 split or pocket rockets, God is always, without fail, a good bet.
That's a chance even I'm willing to take.
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