Future Ambiguity

“Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.” – Proverbs 27:1

This verse has acquired a whole new meaning these days, as we face navigating nearly every event in our future—schools, career, exercise, trips, ministry—with uncertainty. Will this open? If it does, what will it look like? What are my and others’ level of risk tolerance? Will it all change again in a few weeks? 

In a way, this time has brought into clearer focus the spiritual reality that we always have controlled far less of our future than we perhaps think we do. We tend to function with a degree of self-reliance that manifests as either over-confidence about the future, or anxiety over the future, and the Bible warns against both. James 4 says, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go… and make a profit’—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring… you boast in your arrogance.” Matthew 6 says, “Do not be anxious about your life… Look at the birds… your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Both tendencies stem from the same problem: making more of ourselves than we ought.

Proverbs says, wisdom is to accept a certain degree of ambiguity about your future. It is to realize how much we tend to be a victim of our circumstances, a victim of our perception of our future circumstances. It is to recognize how much the future controls how we feel in the present, and to be able to let go of some of that. Wisdom is to be honest about what our heart trusts and hopes in.