The Call of the Future
For the last several years I have been intrigued by the future, not in a science fiction sort of way, but rather the future as our guide, which is how a vision works for the us.
Of the future, a friend and minister, writes, “…every construct of the Kingdom of the future is always and in every respect future-oriented and advancing. Nothing becomes outmoded because all is not only from the future but literally is the future.”1 This caught my attention.
At a young age, God placed a call to ministry on my life – and during those formative teen years, he reinforced that call time and again. As an adult I look back and see that it was that call of the future that kept me and preserved me during times of normal teenage temptation. I knew that God had a plan for my life and I didn’t want to harm the future preacher’s reputation with shameful acts committed in my teenage years. That’s not to say that all the decisions were right or righteous, there are many things I would do differently, but the call of God pulled me into a future of Service.
The pull of the future (Vision) motivates present actions and volition. As I see what God has placed in my future, I intend to work diligently to bring that into present reality.
“Matt Sly and Jay Patrikios are still thinking 30 years into the future. Sly and Patrikios are the minds behind the 2002 website “Future Me” that allows people to send messages to themselves years or decades from the time they were written.
Sly explains the rationale: “We want people to think about their future and what their goals and dreams and hopes and fears are. We’re trying to facilitate some serious existential pondering.”
A quick overview of some of the publicly-posted messages shows people doing just that. Some are pondering dreams they hope to have accomplished by the time they hear from themselves in the future: “I hope you are moving up in your job… I also hope you are making more responsible choices.” Others are taking it as a moment to remind themselves what they were up to years earlier or record what they hope will be beyond them in the future: “I hope you’re better because as I’m writing this letter, you’re doing terrible.”
It is a time capsule wrought in an e-mail, readily drawing in participants all over the world. At the very least, it extracts in many a sense of intrigue. At most, sending words to future selves seems to draw a sense of nostalgia, accountability, apprehension, or hope. 2
Joshua Glenn, columnist, Boston Globe Ideas writes, “The relationship between Present Me and Future Me is too often a parental one: I’m forever making decisions on behalf of Future Me, who I treat like an incompetent man-child — leaving to-do lists where he’ll find them, signing his name to employment contracts and bank loans, educating him, tattooing him, and fattening him up. But must things go on this way forever? Shouldn’t the Me’s have a more evolved relationship? Absolutely, insist the contributors to “Dear Future Me,” who may sometimes lecture their self-to-come, but who more often treat that special someone as a confidant, comrade, accomplice, collaborator, maybe even a pal. “I know you’ll badmouth me sometimes, and I’m sure I deserve it,” one emailer writes. “But I’m pulling for you.” Spoken like a true friend.” 3
Let the vision for NLT live in our hearts, and pull us to do the necessary activities, such as prayer, intercession, and disciple making, so that we see that certain future come to pass!
Pastor Bledsoe
- Nate Wilson from Selected Readings, Wk 4
- Slice of Infinity
- http://www.futureme.org/props
