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Parent Devotion: How to Predict Your Future

We send our kids to college because of the future. College prepares them for the future, and we want them to have a great future. All the hard work, all the investment, all the money will pay off eventually in some glorious, sunshine-filled time to come.

Right?

Most of us—honestly, all of us—happen to be really bad at the future. It’s why diets and exercise plans fail. It’s why planning for retirement feels like both a gamble and a mystery for so many of us. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, much less five, ten, or twenty years from now. So we live for today.

We all do it. College students aren’t the only ones who live in the now. It’s easier. We can wrap our brains around the present, whereas the future can tie up our minds in knots.

But whether we realize it or not, we are living for the future. What we do today—right now—is sending us another step closer to a very specific future. Skipping your workout today isn’t a big deal, but it is a step in a certain direction. Eating that doughnut, in and of itself, isn’t a problem, but it is moving you along a particular path.

Your spiritual life has a future, too. And, like all healthy, fulfilling relationships, your friendship with God needs daily—even continual—attention. What you do with God right now (or don’t do) is leading you to a very specific kind of future with God.

Did you talk with God today? Did you produce any fruit of the Spirit? Did you show compassion and kindness to someone today? Did you spend any time listening to God or reading his Word?

The present is important, if for no other reason than it’s the greatest predictor of your future. What you’re doing today is probably exactly what you’ll be doing tomorrow, and the day after that, and ten years from now.

If you want to predict the future of your faith, look to your faith today.

Digging Deeper: Reflection and Challenge

Journal prompt: How do you hope things will be different in your life a year from now, especially with regard to your relationship with God? Describe what you think would be an ideal day with God.

Challenge: Live that ideal day with God today. Do all those things that would define a perfect, close friendship with God.

The next day, reflect on how your day went. In what ways was that day similar or different from your “typical” days? Did you see God at work more, less, or about the same as usual? If you did it again, what would you do differently?

Read and reflect on Luke 10:38-42. Do you spend your todays more like Mary or Martha?


About The Author

Written by Jeff White, author of the new best-selling Friends With God Story Bible and the upcoming devotional book, Being a Friend of God: Discovering How God Views You. He’s been married to Amy, a high school English teacher, for almost 28 years. They’re the parents of two college-aged kids, as well as a mostly truth-telling 9-year-old.

 

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