“It’s hard not having something to look forward to,” I recently remarked to my husband.
In this strange new time in which we live, we’ve quickly learned that any plans we make must be held loosely. As someone who loves to make plans and work hard toward those plans, this is a challenge for me. Whether it is a family vacation, a ministry event, family gathering, or prepping for the next school year, every plan I make is subject to change due to this ever-changing pandemic. While I’ve always known that I have to hold plans loosely, after all it is God who directs my steps regardless of what I plan (Proverbs 16:9), I’ve seldom lived as though it is true. I make plans and work toward them with the expectation they will likely come to fruition, or at least some version of them will.
But these days, plans are held much loosely than ever before. And as a result, I realize more and more how much hope I place in my plans.
Don’t get me wrong. Making plans or setting goals is not a wrong thing. If we didn’t make plans and didn’t work toward something, we’d not be living out our purpose as image bearers and Kingdom cultivators. If the farmer didn’t look ahead to the next season, he wouldn’t plant seeds and tend to them. He also wouldn’t have anything to eat come harvest time.
Setting goals, planning for the future, and working toward that future are all necessary. I think for me, the challenge is in realizing how much hope I put into that future. How much the idea of that future shapes my present. How my plans and goals define me and give my life meaning. And more, how much I NEED to have that thing to look forward to.
Without any big things to look forward to, I find my heart wandering and seeking to refill that gap. I find myself looking for something, anything to plan and set a goal for. My husband called me the other day from work and asked what I was doing. “Browsing online for a house in the mountains for when we are empty-nesters,” I responded.
Ouch. As I spoke those words aloud, I realized I was chasing an idol. I was looking for something to fill the void all my cancelled plans had left behind.
The Spirit is gentle yet firm with me. It’s no coincidence I am reading through Isaiah right now, a book filled with examples of Israel’s idolatry and the Lord’s compelling call for them to repent and return back to himself. As I read the prophet’s words, I am reminded of how weak and meaningless my idols are (Isaiah 57:13), how they cannot save, rescue, or redeem. I’m also reminded of Calvin’s observations that our hearts are like idol making factories: Remove one, and another takes its place.
But that longing for something in the future, that longing to have something to look forward to, that is an important longing I cannot ignore. That longing is like a shadow of the real thing. Too often, I look to the shadow as the substance. In truth, it can’t even compare. Instead of focusing on what I miss right now, what I can’t have, or can’t do, or can’t plan for, I need to look beyond the temporal future and into eternity.
There is a future ahead for me that I can live for and plan for and wait for with great expectation and hope. It is a certain future far more grand than any vacation I could imagine. It is a future filled with far more meaning and significance than anything I might fill my calendar with on a daily basis. This future that will one day blow away the joy I might miss right now from not being with friends and family or pursuing an important goal or dream. For this future is more than I could ever dream.
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress” (Isaiah 65:17-19).
This weird in-between time as we wait for the pandemic to get under control is a reminder that we live in-between the already and not yet of our faith being made sight. We live in a world that is not our home while we wait for our eternal home with Christ. It’s a difficult tension at times, being in the world but not of it. It’s hard to remember that the joys we experience now are not the end themselves, but only a foretaste of what is to come. The harsh truth is that the more we are rooted in this world, the harder it is to ready ourselves for the one to come.
As the Lord shines a light on the idols of my heart, I am thankful for his grace and mercy. As I repent and pray for a transformed heart, I also pray for his grace to live faithfully for him, not only in the midst of this pandemic, but also as I wait for eternity to come.
Father, forgive me for seeking life and hope outside of you. Help me to find in you all I long for and desire. Fill my thirst and satisfy my soul in Christ. Ready and prepare me for my future in glory. May I live faithfully in the present, all the while looking to the future with great anticipation and joy. In Jesus’s name, amen.
