The future: so what of it?
I'm struck by the verse in the book of James (4:13-17) that I looked at as part of a Bible study that I occasionally lead within the CU.

"Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins."

The future, sorry the Future, is on my mind really quite a lot at the moment. I just can't puzzle it out; where will I be next year, what will I be doing, who with, how? I know I have a house I'm staying in for another year at least, but beyond that I have no real clear-sighted, firm or definite plan.
Of course as a Christian it's easy to pick up clues from other people about how you're supposed to approach future plans; look solemn or pious and state that you're 'trusting God', 'and it's all in his hands'. But often I think I just say this because I think it's the 'right answer' - it's something I've heard other people say.

But how much do I actually do it? How much do I believe it?

It's easy to mutter some vague comments about maybe travelling or spending more time writing or just getting a job to pay the rent and seeing what happens - so easy in fact that it's what I fall into doing at least four times a day, whenever someone asks me what I'm going to do after I graduate.

But this passage tells me that's not enough. It's not enough just to duck out and hide for a few years because you want a rest, some time off, because you just want an escape from stress and bother and people asking you what you're going to do, and then from people telling you what to do...it's not enough to want to just fade away and disappear.
You've got to do something with your life. That's what they say. And of course, they're right And as the passage says, what right do you have to just up and decide what you're going to do, without reference, save in lip service perhaps, to God? "You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes."
Does that mean my life is irrelevant to God? No. It means that He is God, and I am me, and that this is the relationship now of Father and one of his sons. So how could I not consult God? How could I not bring eveything, every idea, every notion to Him and say 'Lord, this is where I am in my thinking, but how can I see things your way? How can I serve You?'

That's the challenge, but it's the challenge I believe God is constantly willing me to take.

Today was tiring, and in a way writing this was the last thing I wanted to do, if only because it's highlighted how far from God my thinking has become. But I don't think love is just about feeling, but a kind of certainty that provokes action. In a way, a lot of what the book of James talks about illustrates this, the problematic relationship of faith and deeds. Perhaps it should be redefined as 'love and deeds'. Look how much God loved, in Christ, so that you could be forgiven. Now may your love, which you may reflect back from His surpassing love (Paul prayed that the Ephesus church would "grasp how wide and long and deep is the love of Christ" and that they would know that it surpassed "all knowledge" Ephesians 3:18-19 and of course, that we may know this too) may cause you to act in a way that shows this.