Dear Solomon, is tomorrow guaranteed for me?

Hope. The word hope is powerful. When we have hope in any given situation, we are motivated to get after it and to keep on keeping on. When a situation we face seems hopeless, we can get depressed and even somewhat emotionally paralyzed. 

From the secular definition of the word, hope is something that does not have an assured outcome but only a possible outcome (i.e., “I hope the economy turns around soon.”). From the biblical definition, hope is something that is an assured reality even if not fully realized at the moment (“Jesus Christ is the hope of our salvation.”). In either case, hope spurs us on; lack of hope demoralizes us.

When we focus our thoughts on the future, everyone lives with a certain measure of hope that things will get better. We may have goals to eliminate our debt, or improve our health through diet and exercise, or develop new skills that make our services in the working world more marketable, or grow spiritually through the discipline of spending more time in Bible study, etc. 

It is a rare person who does not want their lives to be progressively better in one or many ways. The hope for a better future is common to all of us. Even those who do not appear to show any hope for tomorrow prove they do by continuing to get out of bed each morning.

Solomon is not wanting to destroy our hope for the future, but he does want us to reorient our thinking with the counsel that he gives: Don’t brag about your future, for you have no way of knowing what will happen tomorrow.

I have used this quote on many occasions, and I’m sure many of you know it well, but it fits our point: “Yesterday is history, and tomorrow is a mystery; today is a gift, that’s why it is called the present.” 

The obvious point is that we must always live our lives in the present moment. We cannot change the past, and we are not guaranteed that our hearts will continue to beat beyond now, let alone 10, 20 or 30 years into the future, so we only have right now. 

The question then is what are you doing with your life right now? What is your attitude right now? How is your life positively impacting other people right now? What are you doing that has eternal significance right now?

I want to lose weight and have more energy. I want to spend more time impacting the lives of other people. I want to spend more time in prayer and communion and fellowship and intimate relationship with our God. 

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