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N FEBRUARY , scientists announced they had recorded the sound of two black holes colliding in deep space. The collision produced a gravitational wave, a space/time distortion that rippled across the universe and was finally picked up by observatories in Louisiana and Washington. The noise, when it finally reached the earth, sounded like water. It was more of a drip than a bang. An old hymn based on Psalm 90 says that time is like an ever-rolling stream that carries us away. I understand why. The days seem to go faster as I grow older, and I find myself regretting that I have been in such a hurry to meet them. Albert Einstein, the scientist who predicted that we would one day discover gravitational waves, is reported to have said, “I never think about the future; it comes soon enough.” I cannot say the same. The future is never very far from my view. Most of my youth was spent in school, preparing for the future. When I was a pastor, much of my energy was devoted to implementing my vision for the church. Now that I am a professor in a Bible college, I spend my days training the next generation of church leaders. The future is what we save for and is the object of our planning. But if the future is the place where we meet our expectations and desires, it is also the point where the present ends. The future is not a destination. It is a current that carries the happy present downstream and bears it away. This is why the prospect of meeting the future is an occasion for anxiety as often as it is cause for rejoicing.
THE FUTURE’S TWO HORIZONS
THINKSTOCK
In reality, our future has two horizons. One is near; the other is far. It is on the far horizon that we see the “Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matt. 26:64). This is the future of the new heaven and the new earth. The events that lie on the future’s far horizon are beyond our immediate reach. The nearer horizon, on the other hand, is the future of our dreams and plans. This is the domain of short-term goals and what we usually call long-range planning. When we invest our money or save for retirement, we do so for the near future. The near
Mature Living / JANUARY 2017
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