Future Fretfulness

Future Fretfulness

I was never one of those young children who first drove a car, perched excitedly on my father’s lap. In fact, I was one of those kids who got car sick, terribly car sick. I disliked cars as a child. I hated being squished in the back with a pile of other children, in the days before compulsory seat belts. I intensely disliked  being caught in crawling traffic on a summer Sunday afternoon, because the freeway north of Sydney was yet to be constructed. I would sit crammed and hot and feeling sick and always decidedly bored. Thankfully for me, my car rides were few and far between because my father worked for the State Rail Authority and one of the perks of that desk job was free train travel. Travelling everywhere by train worked successfully well for the most part, except we lived on a train line with fewer rail services and we were limited in what events and people and places we could visit. Our family’s schedule and ability to catch trains on time ran like a well oiled machine. There were those times, nevertheless, that family and friends cheerfully drove us home from the varying places we visited.

As a child I grew up with another family who boasted of an almost innumerable amount of children, with ages ranging likes steps from the eldest to the youngest. I was placed in age among the older children in the family and I spent many enjoyable moments with them all. Frequently, after spending an afternoon with my friends, their mother would happily drive me home. They owned an old, aged, large, white station wagon with red leather seats. All of us children would scramble over one another, vying for the best spots, and there we would be, huddled together for the drive to my house. The mother in the family was relaxed and full of laughter as she kept her brood under some semblance of order. However, once behind the steering wheel, she would take on the look of a rally driver, hunched over the steering wheel in full concentration, and stopping for nothing, she would drive on.

Then the day came when the mother did stop the car. She stopped it for me. Randomly she offered to allow me to drive the car. I was thirteen and she thought it was a great opportunity for me to experience driving the car for the first time. I clambered out from among the gaggle of children and sat behind the steering wheel. I was tall for my age and I could see quite clearly across the white bonnet of the car and down the sealed road, stretching out peacefully in front of me. I eased the car forward, gripping the steering wheel in wonder and taking on the delights of driving. I kept my eyes peeled on the lonely road, looking far ahead. The mob of children bouncing in the back quietened as I slowly drove along. Then there was a sudden silence in the car followed by a loud audible gasp from everyone as their words tumbled over each other. “ You just made it past that car,” they cried out. “You were so close I thought you would hit it for sure,” they called. In my mind I was thinking, “What car?” I glanced in the rear view vision mirror and discovered, to my horror, a car parked by the road side. I have driven past it without giving it a wide berth and I had come within a hair’s breadth of scraping it’s entire side. I had never seen the car. Well, I probably had seen it but a long time before I actually passed it. You see, I had never driven a car before. I did not know that when driving a car you need to be aware of traffic conditions ahead, far ahead and just near the car. All I was doing was gazing far ahead, oblivious to the road and traffic conditions just ahead of me or even of those around me. 

I realise in life I can be like that. I can get caught up looking so far ahead, fearing “end time events”, or worrying over future finances, or stressing about life problems that may or may not happen so far into the future, that I forget to look just ahead or even just around me. God wants me to be connected to Him in the present. He wants be to abide in Him and He in me today. He promises that His grace is sufficient for me for one day at a time. I can safely rest my far off future in His capable hands while trusting in Him each day at a time, each week at a time and each month at a time as they stretch out into each year at a time with Him. Will I place my future securely in God’s hands or will I fret my way out of His rest? Will you?

Matt 6:33, 34 "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Lam 3:23 “The LORD'S loving kindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.”

Jer 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”