Long for the future

As years pass by, at some point in your life, you will long for the past. After all, a graph of life is not a continuous sloping line up and to the right, with each day offering a new peak over the last.

I am reminded of the movie, As Good as it Gets, when Jack Nicholson, sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, turns to the guy sitting next to him and says, “what if this is as good as it gets?” Funny during the movie but not as humorous as you journey through life.

The truth of life is that you will have peaks and valleys. Try as you might, you can’t will the valleys to be, well, peaks. Valleys are valleys. And, they are certain in life.

Perhaps no better picture of the ebbs and flows of life exists than in the life of Job.

Job had an incredible life. He was described as being “blameless and upright.” He feared God and shunned evil. He was massively wealthy with livestock and land, described as “the greatest of all the people in the East.” He had sons and daughters and a seemingly very close-knit family. Life was at a peak.

Then, in one day, Job loses his sons, daughters, his wealth, and everything he knew in life. In the coming days, he would lose his health with “painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.” Life was in a valley.

In Job 29, he begins longing for the past. Who wouldn’t in his situation?

“Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me, when his lamp shone upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness, as I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon my tent, when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were all around me, when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock poured out for me streams of oil! When I went out to the gate of the city, when I prepared my seat in the square, the young men saw me and withdrew, and the aged rose and stood; the princes refrained from talking and laid their hand on their mouth; the voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth. When the ear heard, it called me blessed, and when the eye saw, it approved,” Job‬ ‭29:2-11‬

Ever been there? Job loses himself in thinking about his past. He had family, fortune, and honor. He was respected by all.

And, what follows in Job 30, is a man shaking his head in pain and disgust as he looks at his valley. Job 30 begins with “but now” and then, painstakingly, lays out his current situation, his current valley. He says things like “my prosperity has passed like a cloud” and “my soul is poured out because of my plight.”

There is a great lesson in reading Job’s writing as he transitions from looking at the past to looking at his current situation. When Job dwelled on his past, he, naturally, compared it to his current situation. And, when he compared the peak to the valley, there was such a stark difference that hopelessness set in. Comparing the two made him long for the past that much more and see his own situation as that much worse. Hopeless.

And, so it is with us. If we identify a point in our lives when we were at our peak, we have a tendency to compare this high to our current situation. Your family, your marriage, your material possessions, your friends, your health, you name it, each has a peak and each has a valley. Oh, how we long for the perpetual peak. The desire is natural but not realistic.

But, what if we are able to acknowledge the peak and the valley, but long for the future? Hope resides in the future. For, in the future, there will be great peace, great unity, ever-lasting joy. Our peaks and valleys will be long forgotten.

God brings a longing for the future. When God meets you in the valley, He gives hope for the future, and, as the song says, “the things of this world will grow strangely dim.” Job discovered this truth as he was confronted by God later in his book. His friends didn’t bring him peace or understanding as they talked to him, but God enters the scene causing Job to humble himself and brings peace.

Adrian Rogers said that you are either headed for a storm, in a storm, or coming out of a storm. Said differently, storms or valleys are inevitable. But, know that they are also temporary, as God awaits with a blessed future.

God, grant me and all reading this blog the ability to long for the future today.

Point others to the only One who can comfort in the valley.

Impact others. Live generously.