No One Knows the Future

I recently read two news articles. The first was about a fourteen-year-old girl whose parents had found her dead one morning. She had been charging her iPhone as she slept, and had rolled over onto an exposed wire and was tragically electrocuted.

The second item was about a lawsuit being brought against a rotating restaurant atop a hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. A family had gone to the restaurant because it was said to be fun and family-friendly. However, it turned out to be anything but.

As they were leaving, their five-year-old got his head caught in a gap between the booth and the rotating wall. The father frantically threw himself against the wall in an effort to stop it from turning, while the mother pulled at her child as she screamed for help. It didn't stop turning and moments later they heard their beloved child's skull crack.

Those of us who are parents can perhaps feel their terrible anguish. God has placed in each of us an instinct to protect our children from anything that would even slightly harm them, and to see your sweet five-year-old die in such a way is a horror beyond words.

One can only imagine the unending pain of that memory, and the continual thought, "If only we could go back in time and not have gone to that particular restaurant!"

And think of the thoughts of the poor parents of the fourteen-year-old. They lost their beloved child because of a tiny exposed wire! If only they had known what was going to happen, they would have ripped that wire from the wall and trashed it. But they didn't, because they didn't know the future.

We can never go back in time. Not for a second. The past is gone forever. Nor can we know what's going to happen in the future. We only have now. Even weather forecasters don't know what tomorrow will bring. They can only guess based on present data, and many a parade has been rained on because they guessed wrong.

Neither do psychics know the future. Not even slightly. If they did, they need only camp for a short time by the tables and roulette wheels of Las Vegas, and then retire with their billions. But they don't know the roll of the dice or where the wheel will stop.

Neither did the famed Nostradamus know what tomorrow would bring. His "predictions" are so nebulous they can fit anywhere naïve believers want to fit them. The only reason he gained any credibility was that he stole biblical prophecies and made them his own. Anyone who is ignorant of what the Bible says will be impressed with the ramblings of Nostradamus.

Could you imagine being at that rotating restaurant, knowing what was about to happen, and saying nothing? You see the child walk toward the gap, and you keep silent? You know the harm that will follow, and yet you refuse to speak up. How evil that would be! Or imagine seeing the fourteen-year-old about to roll over on that exposed wire, and you look the other way. How wicked that would be!

Here's my point. If we knew the future and knew that there was danger, we would have a sobering responsibility.

Read more about the future on The Christian Post.