Looking Forward

[WARNING: Long post. I hope you read it though. I think you will be encouraged!]

Have you ever caught yourself thinking about tomorrow? Maybe you have some event coming up that you just can’t wait for. Maybe there is someone in your life that you haven’t seen in a while and you get to see them soon. Maybe it’s because you are just not enjoying this day or this season of life so you just want it to be over.

I have found myself doing this a lot recently. Mostly, I think it’s a result of missing home. I am looking forward to seeing family and catching up with old friends over the holiday season. I am looking forward to normal life in the US where I will have more amenities. But then I am also looking forward to coming back in January and meeting the new interns and starting work on a new project. And yet, I am also looking forward to June, when I come home again and start the next season of my life where I find a real paying job and stuff like that.

However, what I have found is that if we think too much about the future we miss out on the present. I have made this mistake many times. I remember thinking countless times in college about how I just wanted it to be over so I could move forward into a time without homework or tests or the worries of school. Looking back, though, I really cherished my time in college and I made some great memories. I only wish I could have made more and not wished it to be over so soon.

This happened to me again last weekend. I was sitting outside at a restaurant in Jinja watching the sunset over the Nile River and all I could think about was the things I wanted to do while I was home over Christmas. I caught myself. “Am I nuts?” I thought. “I am currently watching the sunset on the Nile River in Africa and all I can think about it cold, flat Illinois. What an amazing opportunity I have before me and I am thinking about being somewhere else.” Doesn’t that seem backwards to you? It sure did to me. A verse popped into my head:

This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it. -Psalm 118:24 (ESV)

This is what I should be doing. I should be rejoicing in what God had set before me. Instead, I was missing out on this amazing sunset. This got me thinking further. I think it all boils down to where you put your hope and from where you receive your joy. If you put all you hope in relationships or events or things of this world, what happens when it’s over or it wasn’t as satisfying as you thought it would be? You are left looking towards the next relationship or event. You see, the things of this world are temporary and therefore can only give temporary joy. I contend that in order to fully experience joy, we must put our hope in the everlasting… Jesus Christ. It’s only when we follow God’s commandments and abide in his love that will we find true joy. Jesus puts it this way in the Gospel of John:

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” -John 15:9-11 (ESV)

So is looking forward to tomorrow wrong? Not always. In fact, I think it can be a very good thing sometimes. For example, I am grateful for the fact that I miss home. I am grateful that it is a wonderful place of which I have fond memories. I think it can also be good to look forward, having vision and a purpose in your life. For example, I look forward to the day “when Christ who is [my] life appears” (when Christ come again) because then I “also will appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4). But I would challenge you to take a look at your life and examine where you are looking for joy. If it’s in the temporary things of this world, when happens when they are gone? What happens when you are planning on them coming tomorrow and they don’t come? What will happen to your joy? If you place your hope in Jesus, he promises “that your joy may be full.” What an amazing thought! So where do you put your hope?