When a restaurant patron received the bill for his lunch, he noticed a request for a tip and a list of appropriate percentages based on the cost of his meal. In addition to his monetary contribution, he left this note, “Buy low, sell high.” That was no doubt excellent advice, but applying it in real life is actually quite difficult. If you buy a stock, no matter what expert’s advice your receive, you don’t really know where the low cost or high cost is. If it were easy, everyone could be as rich as Warren Buffet.
Predicting the future is a dodgy business at the very least. Change is always going to come, but when and where is only obvious after the fact. I have no trouble believing that God knows the future as well as the present and past, but doesn’t usually make it plain to all of us mortals. If we knew what was to come in detail, our life would be even more stressful than it already is.
What are we to do? We can prepare as much as we can for the dangers we anticipate, and then trust God for the future we cannot see. While the present and our anticipation of the future may make us feel insecure, we can find security in the continuing grace and mercy of God. God’s grace and mercy are revealed especially in the sacrificial life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, but are also shown in God’s acts of grace and mercy in the everyday lives of God’s people.
“Your mercies are new every day,” could well be the daily prayer of thanksgiving for God’s people, as every day we walk with Jesus on the Kingdom Road. Thanks be to God!