The God of My Tomorrow

First, some housekeeping:  at my last post, I quoted Lewis from memory, suspecting the passage was from Mere Christianity, but too lazy to look for it.  My sister, more diligent than I, found it easily.  Here is the full quote in context:

If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?”

****************************************************************************

If we learn anything from salvation history, it's that God is not in a hurry.  It took Him around 2000 years to prepare the Jewish nation for the coming of its Messiah.  Beginning with Abraham, Yahweh slowly formed first a man who could trust him, then a family -- and that was anything but easy --- and even tougher, finally a nation.  And always, at every stage, the people looked back on its history in order to move forward:  "I am the God of your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ..... I brought your forefathers out of Egypt, that land of slavery......As I was with Moses, so I will be with you."

Because of its experience with the God of the fathers, Israel was able to walk into the future.  In fact, as they entered the Promised Land and discovered that Yahweh was still acting on their behalf, they constructed stone monuments in various areas as reminders to future generations.  They called these structures "Ebenezer," meaning, "Thus far has God helped us/ been with us."  Visible reminders, along with the stories that accompanied them, gave the Israelites courage and faith that God was guiding their history.

In a similar way, reflecting on where God has been for us in the past, thinking about how He has guided our decisions and paths, can be a strong impetus to our own faith and courage to open our lives to Him today.  In 1976, at a sort of crisis in my own life, someone asked me, "Who is God to you?"  I had the evening to think about my answer, one that surprised me.  No one had ever asked me that question before, so I was sort of coasting on a vague and general understanding of who God was to me.

The next morning ( I was at a retreat center, talking to a counselor), I replied, "God is the God of my past, occasionally of my present, but He is not the God of my future.  I worry about what may happen tomorrow and the next day, and I think maybe I don't really trust God."  

What I explained was that I could almost always look back and see where God had been in my life, where I had taken this turn instead of that one --- and occasionally I could experience God in the present moment, perhaps in prayer, but for the most part, I figured I was in charge of the next step and feared that I was not prepared to handle it.  The question I was asked was a powerful one, for looking back, I think that may have been the moment when I wanted to know and trust the God of My Tomorrow.

When David faced Goliath as a young man, his courage came from reflecting on Who God had been for him in the past: 

Saul replied: You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth."

But David said to Saul, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep.  When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth.  When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.  Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; ....The Lord who delivered me from the pa of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine" (I Samuel 17).

In biblical terms, this "speech," if you will, is called "Theology of Recital."  That is, like the Israelites who built monuments across the land and told stories about how God had helped them in that spot, David recited stories of where God had been in his past.  

Our past is a signpost to our future if indeed we can identify the landmarks:  "Here I was helped," and "There I was directed."  Contrary to popular belief, faith is not a "leap in the dark," but rather a sound reflection on where and Who God has been for us in the past.  There is a popular song called "Will you love me tomorrow?"  I love the melody, and finally, I love changing the words to "You are the God of my tomorrow!"  I could not be more thankful!